


The Myth Maker

by palimpsestus



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Backstory, F/F, F/M, Gen, Science Fiction, colonist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 13:10:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 57,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palimpsestus/pseuds/palimpsestus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Well, what about Shepard?" - Legends arise when fate, necessity, serendipity and resilience combine. There were many paths to the SSV Normandy. Commander Shepard was a legend when she stepped on board, but the path she had taken was her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Butterfly's Wing

**Earth Date: 15/03/2168**

Mindoir’s main encampment, Domocus, stretched out in the valley below them when they rounded the crest of Old Man Whiskey. Alan Shepard raised his hand to lift his hat from his brow, wiping the sweat where the band had been sticking. Domocus had been busy since his party set out in the morning, he could see a pyre built up in each of the three community squares, each pyre supposed to represent the thrusters of the ships which brought the first-drop settlers. They’d be lit at sunset for Landing Day, their fifteenth annual celebration of the successful groundbreaking.

Domocus had grown from a cluster of pre-fabs, adding a region of wooden cabins and even a brick townhall towards the west. Sal’s Point, on the coast, and Romy’s further to the south were still in pre-fab stage, shining in the sunlight that flooded the valley.  Alan had recently agreed to a partial clearing of Bobby’s Forest in order to create more grazing for the goats and the lumber was already earmarked for a few family homes in every settlement.

“Looks like they’ve been busy,” Sam said at his shoulder. He gave the cuffed batarian a little push and continued down towards the settlement, the rest of the party following along behind. Alan lingered, watching the batarian’s bowed head as it watched it’s footing. The other one in the shuttle had died in the crash and this one looked a little battered. All the same, it had put up one hell of a fight until Kimmy had lobbed a fist sized rock right at the batarian’s head. He was glad she’d done it, but somehow he wished he’d been faster with the hunting rifle he’d brought with them and  taken a shot through the alien’s skull. It was going to bring nothing but bad news to the colony.

Kimmy glanced back at him, eyebrows raised in silent question and he nodded, starting down into the valley.

Mindoir’s population of approximately 400,000 humans were spread between four large encampments. Domocus, Sal’s Point and Romy’s had all been established by first-drop’rs, while Coska, a good few hundred klicks to the north had been established by the majority of the third-drop’rs. He was going to have to comm them about their guest. He only hoped the Coskans hadn’t seen one of these aliens before. Would the Coskans keep this kind of knowledge from the rest of them? No, even their recalcitrance didn’t extend that far.

Kimmy was one of the fourth drop settlers, their most recent shipment after the colony had reported they were happy to expand again. It was going to be her second, no, _third_ Landing Day celebration. He liked Kimmy, she had the right Mindoiran attitude. She was a young kid, full of spunk and she was a dab hand with a spanner too. She could have had her pick of colonies, but she had chosen Mindoir. He liked that too.

Anyone who chose his little planet over the larger, more corporate ventures of Terra Nova, Eden Prime and the other, faster growing colonies in the Traverse was alright by him.

Jonas and Lou he would trust to the death, and Sam’s heart was in the right place, but he’d be more inclined to run his mouth after a few inaugural ales tonight. And the best place to keep this batarian was in the town hall. Alan just had to hope they could get there without too many eyeballs tracking their progress.

“Uh oh,” Kimmy pointed towards a small troupe of Mindoirans fishing in the river. “We might have some company soon.”

Alan followed her gaze, noted the range of ages, the usual suspects, and yes – there she was – his heart leapt in his suddenly-dry mouth. His eldest daughter lifted her head, dark hair whipping in the wind, her dungarees rolled up past her knees, her body not quite as lanky and child-like as it had once been. Sometimes now he could see the woman she was going to become, see flashes of his family in her. He saw a lot of his wife in her face, her eyes, her dark hair, but something of himself too. She caught sight of him and he heard her shout in the wind, before she began tearing up the hill towards them.

“Take that thing to the hall,” he said to Sam, striding forwards to meet his daughter halfway. Her friends remained by the stream, his team still taking the batarian, and he wondered if one day she’d be the one taking a scout party out to search the perimeters for crashed shuttles.

“Dad!” she grinned, breathlessly, as she came to a stop beside him. “Who was that?” she asked, nodding to the others.

He wanted to say ‘no one’ and tell her to forget she’d seen an extra person return with the party. From here the batarian would look human, to a child who had never seen one before, but his daughter was leaving childhood behind, and she would never accept ‘no one’ for an answer. He didn’t try to remain light hearted for her sake. Instead, he placed his hand on her shoulder. “Go to your mother and tell her to meet me in the town hall. You might have to keep an eye on your sisters.”

Her gaze clouded and she looked back over to Kimmy and the others. “Is everything okay?”

“Just go,” he said, bowing to kiss the crown of her head. “Quickly, please, and don’t stop to speak to anyone.”

She was frowning hard now, brows furrowing over blue eyes, but she nodded and took off down the hill, moving far faster than he ever would down the steep scree, surefooted and unafraid of falling. He watched her go, watched some of her friends make an attempt to follow, and hoped his heart would stop racing. Batarians on Mindoir.

Not on his watch. His gaze was drawn skywards, to the wisps of white clouds still sticking on their azure sky, promising a chilly evening for their Landing Day fires. Perfect skies. Unmarked skies.

 

***

 

The batarian was locked in the basement where the casks were stored. It was offered water, but tied very firmly to his chair. Alan waited in the stairwell, his arms folded as he leaned against the cool brick, listening to the debate between Tommen and Nicki. The door at the end of the corridor opened, closing again almost immediately, but bringing with it all the warmth, security and safety he needed. He reached out for his wife, embracing her and holding her close, closing his eyes as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. “Bridge,” he murmured.

“You stink,” she said softly, extricating herself for long enough to peer up at him, scrutinising his appearance with narrowed eyes. “Well?” her gaze darted down the hallway to where Tommen and Nicki were still arguing. “How bad is it?”

“One survivor. Batarian.”

Bridget sucked in her breath through her teeth, nodding.  “What are we going to do?” she asked him, taking a few steps further away from the arguing pair.

He ran his fingers over his beard, thinking that Tommen would be listening for these exact words. “We need to alert the Alliance,” he said.

Bridget’s face remained impassive, except for the tightening of her lips. Tommen, however, swore and kicked at the wall. “We can’t,” Tommen said. “They’ll be all over us.”

“I agree, we came here because we didn’t want the Alliance on our backs,” Nicki said. “Besides, that sort of decision cannot be made unilaterally. That’s a vote. A council vote at least. Maybe even a settler vote.”

“We kill the batarian,” Tommen added, slamming a fist into the opposite palm.

“We are not killing the batarian,” Alan snapped, too quickly, and he could practically see Tommen’s hackles rise.

“You’re not in charge here, Shepard, regardless of what you might think.”

“Tommen, wait,” Nicki began, shifting her weight and laying a hand on Tommen’s arm. “Look, it’ll be safe enough here for the night. Let’s get the ground breakers together this evening, discuss what to do then. In the end, we make the decision. _Together_ ,” she added the last word with a stern glare in Alan’s direction. He could only nod. It was a decision the ground breakers should make together. Mindoir was theirs, as was its future.

Bridget sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “What kind of shuttle was it?”

He lifted his comms device, showing her the pictures he’d snapped, studying her face for any signs of recognition. He didn’t like the way her eyes turned stony and her mouth tightened even further.

“You know what that is, Bridge?” Tommen asked.

“It’s designed for long range work, small crew,” Bridget said, turning her head away.

“A scout,” Nicki said, her words very soft in the hallway.

Alan found himself nodding.

 

***

 

The fires were something spectacular that evening, with singing and dancing beside each one, food so good that his stomach ached and company that would have put any of the larger colonies to shame. Back in the days before first contact, Mindoir might have become something more like its older siblings, Eden Prime and Terra Nova. It was the fourth colonised planet, but limited by the Mindoir Charter expressly prohibiting commercialised settling. Something he himself had drafted, and had been so proud of. Three years after the colony had been settled, and when they were about to open their doors to a second drop, the First Contact War had happened, and suddenly those noble words and ideals seemed so much hot air and bluster. Where was the Alliance? There was no garrison on Mindoir like on Shanxi.

The ground breakers, those who had co-ordinated, funded and survived the first drop, listened to him as he worked his way around their fires. It was all very well to say they were independent, back when there was nothing out here, but the frontier was no frontier after all, it was only someone else’s back yard. Humans had an embassy on the Citadel now. If batarians were sniffing around, Mindoir shouldn’t have to silently worry.

The speech was given so often, to people he knew so well, that by the end of the evening, he had it down to an art. If it came to a vote, he thought the ground breakers might agree that they should signal the Alliance.

He joined Bridget at the square they had made their first camp in, so many years ago. She had Harry sitting on her lap while she talked and laughed with some of the other ground breakers and later drop’rs. He sat beside them, wrapping an arm around her waist and listening to their jokes. He spotted Kimmy with his two younger daughters, trying to learn the fast paced jig that they liked best. Bridget elbowed him, pointing to the shadows where the shadow of his eldest could be spotted, trying to wrestle Mike Gurran to the amusement of a crowd of teenaged onlookers.

“In a few years’ time, she’ll be doing that a little differently,” Bridget murmured. “Where does the time go?”

He shook his head, but he wondered if, in a few years’ time, there mightn’t be an Alliance presence here too.

Late in the evening, as the fires cooled to embers, he noticed Lou and Kimmy working their way through the crowd, faces grim. He passed Harry to a friend and skirted into the narrow alleys between prefabs, waiting for the two to catch up to him. Kimmy dragged her hands through her hair, while Lou pulled his pipe from his pocket, tapping at the tobacco inside.

“Batarian’s dead,” Kimmy whispered, while Lou worked at lighting the pipe. “Slit its wrists.”

“It did?” Alan asked, his heart sinking a stone. “Or did someone do it for him?”

“Guards said no one went in,” Kimmy said.

Lou snorted, taking a deep puff from his pipe. “I saw the guards at the drinks table myself. Anyone could have gone in.”

“You don’t think-” Kimmy began, eyes widening.

Lou only shrugged, meeting Alan’s gaze. “Maybe. Maybe not. Now we can’t question it.”

“Question it?” Kimmy’s eyes were as wide as saucers now, reflecting stars and embers. “Alan, you don’t think they’re actually going to come here, do you?” She crossed her arms in front of her slender chest, her emotions waging open war on her slightly flushed face. Inexplicably, he thought of his daughter wrestling the Gurran boy, wondered if Kimmy had ever done something similar, if she’d ever fallen in love, how many hearts she’d broken.

“Not on my watch,” he told her, placing a hand on her arm, feeling the tense muscles relax a little under his touch. “This is our planet. We will be safe here.” 


	2. Deliberate Twists of Fate

**Earth Date: 21/05/2168**

 

Most cows on Earth were stupid, slow beasts, engineered for docility and weight gain. Mindoir needed rougher stock, stock that could defend itself against the natural broto population and convert all of Mindoir’s dry grass to solid muscle. As such, they were temperamental beasties, always ready with their horns if you got too close. Today Alan had little Cathy with him, hoping she might pick up some common sense. Unlike her other sisters, Cathy’s attentions never seemed to attain focus, instead darting from one thing to the next like an Earth magpie. Even now, her attention was less on the newly born calf and more on the sky, complaining that she wanted to see funny clouds again.

 

Alan slid his hands inside the cow again, feeling around for whatever was causing the poor girl grief. Sure enough, he felt the head of the second calf, a surprisingly large thing. “Good girl,” he murmured, shifting to try and get a better position, feeling the sun beat down on his shoulders. “A couple more squeezes and you’ll be good,” he assured his cow, twisting a tiny hoof into position.

 

“Daddy,” Cathy stopped making patterns in the dirt with her feet. “Kimmy’s coming,” she said. “Kimmy’s running!”

 

He lifted his head to catch sight of the young woman sprinting over the fields towards them, waving her hands in the air. Her omnitool, an unusual indulgence for a Mindoiran, was glowing on her arm.

 

“Cathy, check my comm, would you?” he asked, nodding to his bag discarded a little way off. “She looks like she’s been trying to get in touch.”

 

While Cathy scurried off obediently, he turned his attention back to the cow who was now doing much better. By the time Kimmy reached him, Cathy had proven he had been ignoring the woman’s calls and the cow had two little calves to lick over. “What’s the matter?” he asked as Kimmy collapsed on the dirt beside him.

 

“You never answer your damned comms!” she screeched through laboured breaths. “Damn speeder’s out again!” She let her head fall backwards, sucking in air greedily. Cathy giggled. “Saw a shuttle trail go over Old Man Whiskey’s east ridge,” she managed. “Looked like it was in real trouble.”

 

“A shuttle?” Cathy asked, confused, but Alan felt his blood run cold.

 

“How far long the ridge?” he demanded. “The girls took the goat herd up that way this morning.”

 

Now it was Kimmy’s turn to pale. Her exhaustion was forgotten as she scrambled back to her feet. “I reckoned it was going to hit dirt a few klicks east but-”

 

“Take Cathy!” Alan snapped at her, sprinting back to his horse. He was astride and kicking the gelding into a gallop as Kimmy yelled after him.

 

He had only made it as far as their holding outside Domocus when the ground shook and the sky flared with the unmistakeable sound of an engine overload.

 

He’d never seen so many frightened children. The worst they’d thought they’d ever have to face was a rutting broto after their goats. A crashing shuttle was so far beyond their imaginations that none of them had stopped to warn his daughter before she plunged onwards.

 

Nicki worked tirelessly. A simple, backwater colony they may have been, but he had never been so grateful to have their ornery, stubborn doctor and her well-stocked med bay. Bridget was wound tighter than a piano wire, buzzing while Nicki worked, unable to even see him as he stood by her elbow. Nor did she want to go to their other children, sitting quietly in their home with their neighbour Sal. So he went instead, sat in the living room on the cheap, grey sofa they had rescued from their pre-fab when they’d moved into the larger hand-built cabin. He had always hated it. He hated it more and more as he sat there with Harry on his lap, Cathy snuggled into his side and Dot playing a game of cards with Sal. The house had never been so silent. His comm unit sat on the cushion beside him, small and dead.

 

The kids had explained what happened. His daughter, his beautiful, brave, smart daughter, had seen the shuttle going down and announced that they had to go and search for survivors. And so a bunch of teenagers were drawn towards the downed shuttle. A few of them had singed eyebrows, a couple of minor burns to arms that had been thrown up to shield their faces, but his daughter had been at the front. His daughter, who he’d held in his arms when she was only minutes old, the third child born on Mindoir, his daughter . . . apparently she’d been flung backwards. The burns were superficial, recoverable, the head injury had given Nicki more cause for concern. He would teach the rest of his children never to help anyone. Ever. In his mind’s eye, he saw his daughter being flung backwards, again and again.

 

The call came hours later. She was fine. Safe. Her head wasn’t damaged, new skin was grafted on, and she would be fine. Apparently the first thing she’d asked was if anyone had survived the crash. Bridget broke down into tears when she finished by saying their daughter was going to have to get used to her new haircut. Burned to many different varieties of short. Bridget was going to stay in the clinic, he agreed to stay with their other children and Sal made no mention of leaving at all. Clearly, she didn’t think he could survive unmonitored. He was inclined to agree. With all the kids, even though Dot protested, in bed, Sal found a bottle of whisky and sat down with him at the kitchen table, pouring a stiff measure for each of them. She clinked her glass against his. “I don’t mind saying, Alan, I think the whole colony was praying for her.”

 

He nodded, pressing his lips against the cool glass, feeling bile rise in his throat. He blinked in appreciation when Sal reached across the table to clasp his free hand.

 

“Do you remember, between Bridge, Calleigh and Sandra?  Which one of them was going to pop first?”

 

He smiled, nodding. Those early days of the colony, when they seemed so far away from everything, sleeping under alien skies and the shadows of their drop ships. And yet now they were built up, stronger, they seemed more isolated than ever. Was it batarians again? Why had their shuttle crashed? Were there more lurking in orbit somewhere? He’d ask Sam to double the scans their comm relays were running.

 

“Drink that, Alan,” Sal said softly. “She’s okay.”

 

***

 

Nicki didn’t look as though she’d left the clinic in days. Usually her long dark braids dangled down to her waist, the beads at the end clicking together. Today they were all tied up atop her head. Dark, purple bruises under her eyes reminded him that no matter how good a doctor she was, she was still present for the birth of all his children, and almost every death on Mindoir. How she kept those sides separate he’d never know. She was sipping a coffee when he entered the clinic and she tilted her head up in greeting.  He approached her, bowing down to embrace her. “Thank you,” he whispered against her ear.

 

She pushed him away, setting her mug on the desk and waving irritably. “My job,” she said. All the same, he saw her drag her palm over her mouth. “Has Bridget spoken to you?”

 

“Nothing more than status updates,” he said, looking down the hallways to where the clinic’s one ward was. Unlike most of the major first drop buildings, the clinic was still pre-fab, with glaring white walls and smooth lines. It made him uncomfortable. He could see Bridget moving through the partially frosted window, a laugh on her lips as she discussed something with the patient.

 

Nicki was nodding, pulling an omnitool glove on and tapping her fingers over the display. “Do you remember, back when we were leaving Earth, there was a drive core overload off Titan and we made the decision not to adjust course?”

 

Did he remember? Honestly, no. Back then he was still fighting for their right to settle without corporate funding and he’d been contesting Gray’s Minings claim on the northern Mindoir continent.

 

Nicki frowned at his blank expression. “Okay, basically we flew threw a eezo cloud and it shouldn’t have been a problem but we diverted to pick up that ailing freighter, you remember _that_ , right?”

 

“I was very busy,” he began.

 

Nicki sighed heavily. “Okay. Bridge and a few other women were exposed to eezo early in their pregnancies. I noted at the time that the dust clustered in what is typically referred to as ‘nodules’ on nerve endings in the foetuses. Basically, it just didn’t filter out of the body as it would have in an adult.”

 

Pulling a chair out, Alan sat, studying the doctor intently. “What are you saying?”

 

“Have you heard of biotics at least?” Nicki asked him.

 

“Telekinesis, that sort of thing,” he said, his heart thumping.

 

“That sort of thing,” she echoed with a dry smile, setting his mind at ease somewhat. If Nicki wasn’t worried, he wouldn’t be. “Your daughter has always had these clusters, but she was just exposed to a massive dose of eezo a few days ago. Those clusters have just . . . intensified. Massively. It’s like the little nodes she developed just attracted all the eezo she was around.”

 

He held up his hands in surrender. “Nicki, is she okay?”

 

“She’s fine,” Nicki stressed. “But the Alliance and Conatix and a bunch of other organisations have been consistently messaging me year in, year out, looking for precisely this kind of manifestation.” She drummed her fingers off her desk. “I’m inclined not to say anything.”

 

Alan was on his feet again, staring into the ward. Bridget was trying to arrange the tufts of their daughter’s hair into something resembling a style, both of them helpless with laughter he couldn’t hear. “You think they’d try to take her away?”

 

“Yes.” Nicki pulled her omnitool glove off. “I’ll do some research. See what human biotics are up to these days. I know brain surgery is usually associated. As the Shepard family doctor, I tend not to prescribe brain surgery. The less I know about what goes on in those thick skulls the better.”

 

***

 

“Pancakes!”

 

“Pancakes!”

 

“MUFFINS!”

 

“Well I was hurt so I get the casting vote and it’s pancakes.”

 

Alan said very little as he worked his way through his brood, managing to kiss Bridge on the cheek as he got through. “I gotta go with muffins,” he said, picking Harry up from the floor as he went. “We boys have got to stick together.”

 

“Yeah!” Harry cheered.

 

A chap on the door had Dot running to get it. “Kimmy!” he heard her shout from the far side. “Did you bring me the circuit boards?”

 

Alan cast a look over to his wife who only shrugged as she began mixing up the batter. He set Harry down and headed into the living room, surprised to find Kimmy there with grease stained arms and a serious face. She patted Dot on the head. “Another time, Scrappy,” she said. “Right now, I need to speak to your dad.” She pointed to the veranda and he nodded.

 

“Go make sure your sister doesn’t split her new skin trying to get to those pancakes,” he said to Dot, stepping out into the hot summer air with Kimmy by his side. The heat was almost stifling today, the smells of Domocus’s  cooking fires carrying even to their farm. He perched on the veranda railing, surveying Kimmy and her worried eyes. “What?”

 

“It wasn’t a shuttle.” Kimmy grimaced at the first words out of her mouth and looked over her shoulder to the house’s interior. “I mean, it was meant to look like one, but it was way too small, more like a pod.”

 

He frowned. “But an eezo core exploded.”

 

“Yeah,” Kimmy said cautiously. “In atmosphere though. The pod just self-destructed. I think somebody might have been deliberately trying to pepper the colony with eezo and used the pod as a lure.”

 

A twinge of a headache was building behind his eyes and he closed them, lowering his chin to his chest as he considered this. “Who have you told?”

 

“The team working with me at the crash site know, we came to the conclusion jointly. I told Nicki, it’s a health risk.”

 

He nodded, raising his eyes to her once again. “No one else, you hear? We have more than enough on our plates without thinking someone’s trying to poison us all.”

 

Kimmy pursed her lips. “But, Shepard-”

 

“Please,” he said, reaching for her arm. “My family need this to be kept quiet. Please.”

 

She frowned, a deep furrow forming between her brows, but finally she nodded. “Fine. Yes.” She folded her arms tightly and kicked at the decking. “I’ll not say anything. But what if they try again, Shepard?”

 

“Then we worry about it then.” He headed for the door. “Want some pancakes? Bridge is making them for our little invalid.”

 

Kimmy hesitated, craning her neck to peer in the kitchen window. She shook her head, a little regretfully. “No. I’d better get back to the shop, been up at the crash site all week. I’ll be back to show Bridge what I recovered though, and let Sparks know I’ll bring her circuit boards next time.”

 

“Thanks, Kimmy.” He watched the young woman as she headed back into town, hands in pockets and kicking at the dirt track road. 


	3. There But For the Grace of God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fateful day on Mindoir

**Earth Date: 30/04/2170**

 

She woke because of a sinking feeling in her stomach, something like jumping off of Pete’s rock and into the lagoon, the long glorious moment of freefall before gravity caught up to her and dropped her into the cold, dark waters.  A dream, no doubt, that was all.

 

The tingle in her fingers just came from sleeping on her hand, that was all.

 

Mike was still lying beside her, snoring softly despite the sun rising in the sky. The grass was flat under their backs, a little coarse and prickly against her bare shoulders. She lifted her head, feeling the tickle of the hair at the nape of her neck, unruly after their night under the stars, and looked down at him. His hair was a mess too, longer than hers was at the moment, his bare chest still showing a few burn scars from the shuttle crash when they were fourteen. Her mother didn’t approve of this, kept muttering words like ‘reputation’ and ‘small colony’, but didn’t go so far as expressly forbidding anything.

 

She reached for her shirt, tugging it over her head and grimacing as it snagged over her chest. It took a few tugs, but the fabric finally settled. She padded on bare feet towards the stream, taking her rifle with her. Their horses had been grazing during the night, engineered to make the most of the non-nutritious grass here in the mountains. They watched her, wary of the work she might bring them, only returning to their breakfast when she passed them for the brook. The dirt felt cool between her toes, the water just a little icy from its journey down the mountain. She ran her hands through her hair, slicking it back from her face, and then she cupped her hands in the stream and drank deep.  Here the trees shaded her, kept the morning sun off her back and it was almost chilled enough to make her shiver.

 

“Mm,” she felt the lurch in her stomach once more and the leaves quivered, blue fire wreathing them and not consuming them. She doubled over, her knees splashing into the stream, breathing through an open mouth to quieten her tummy. “Ugh.”

 

“You okay?”

 

Her fingers were splayed in the clear waters, the rocks sharp against her palm. When she looked up, the blue corona was gone, but the nausea remained. “Fine,” she said, pulling herself out of the stream. Mike was watching her from the dappled sun spots in the field, an odd look on his face, half cast in shadow. She closed her fist around the rifle and went to join him, forcing a smile onto her face, not letting it waver when he withdrew slightly from her extended hand. “Come on, we’ve got a couple of klicks to cover today.”

 

“We could go back,” Mike said uncertainly, returning to their little camp. “I mean, if you’re not feeling well.”

 

Her stomach lurched again, and this was not just nerves. She rubbed her taut belly, looking up into the mountains where the dark peaks were fading into the morning clouds. “I’m fine,” she said again. “You ready to go?”

 

Mike shrugged, digging inside his pack for a strip of jerky. “Let’s eat first,” he said, plonking himself back down on the flattened grass. “And put the rifle down, Ace, you hear any brotos out here?”

 

Gritting her teeth against the nickname – no point in mentioning how much it irked her – she declined to eat and to put the rifle down. The rifle was the only reason her father allowed her out past Domocus’ perimeter these days. The batarians weren’t supposed to be common knowledge, even Dot and Cathy didn’t know about the omnipresent threat. If Mike knew anything, it was just that a shuttle had crashed once, he’d seen it explode with his own eyes.

 

“Uh, Ace?”

 

She noticed Mike was staring at her fist where blue arcs of electricity were sparking between the knuckles. She shifted the rifle to her other hand and shook her hand out. “I’m gonna head up on the ridge,” she said, pointing. “See if I can find that herd.”

 

Mike nodded but sunk his teeth into the jerky, twisting his head violently to rip a chunk off. He was silent as she pulled on her boots and shouldered her pack and went to her mare. She quieted Pluto with a sharp word in the bay’s ear and a slap to the withers. The rifle was strapped firmly to her saddle and she let Pluto walk slowly up the ridge, stretching the mare’s legs out. The ride was pleasant, the sun warming her bones as they climbed. Pluto’s ears flicked back and forth, listening to her commands and their surroundings.

 

Pluto trusted her. More than Mike or any of the others these days. Pluto might not like the blue fire, but she forgot it quickly. It was more than could be said of her friends. She let her fingers work on the muscles of Pluto’s neck. Some people thought the horses should be worked and that was all, but she’d always found that a little sweetness went a long way with the stubborn mare, and none of the camp’s horses was as good on the scree as Pluto. The mare’s sure-footedness more than made up for her temper. And Pluto didn’t mind if she sang either, except for the odd extra ear flicker.

 

The rumble started so low at first that she thought it might have been a rockslide, but a quick look up at the mountains showed no fresh scars on the rocks. The rumble grew, giving Pluto cause to shiver between her legs, tail swishing in irritation. “Sssh,” she murmured, placing her hand on Pluto’s neck but applying her leg strongly to the mare’s sides, urging her up the ridge. The valley should have shown Costa in the distance, like white pebbles on a mossy bank, the prefabs unnaturally imposing order on the arable land. But the view from the ridge showed something dark and vibrating, hulking over Costa, burning the fields around it into slag.

 

Pluto spooked, rearing and whinnying as a second ship made its entry into the atmosphere, the rumble building to a roar. She fought with the mare, tightening her grip on the reins and squeezing her legs around the mare’s ribs. Her pack bounced against her back, the rifle’s butt thumping against her knee. “Enough, enough,” she cooed at the horse, tugging her back around to face the landing ship. Pluto stilled, her every muscle tense as she stared at the ship. The horse seemed to understand the significance of the sight. The girl was not sure she did.

 

All the same, she reached into her bag for her comm unit, swearing in frustration when it beeped, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the orbiting satellites.

 

But then, if it was some kind of invasion, wouldn’t these ships have taken the satellites out beforehand?

 

Pluto barely needed a tap at her sides, never mind the almighty kick she received. She took off back down the ridge at a gallop, hooves kicking up dirt and shale. Shepard leaned forward over the mare’s neck, praying that she didn’t trip and bring both of them to a quick end, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to check the mare’s speed. The horse’s breath was a thunder in her ears, hot puffs of air smacking against her face as they plunged down into the steppes. She could see Mike saddling Titan, alarmed by her hasty approach, backing up as she reined Pluto to a stop.

 

“Your comms unit, can you get a signal?” she demanded, breathlessly, pulling the mare into a circle as the horse pranced and tossed her head.

 

“What? Ace, what’s-” Mike reached for his bag none-the-less. He flicked through the channels, frowning as static and beeps greeted him.

 

“There’s ships over Costa,” she told him, spinning Pluto around and hauling at the bit in an attempt to halt her. “They’re raiding us! We need to get to the comm towers.”

 

“What?” Mike was scrambling atop Titan, bag forgotten. He swore when he realised the pack with sitting on the grass, but by now Titan had caught the urgency and had no patience for Mike trying to grab it. Shepard spurred Pluto forwards, the mare only too eager to run, Titan springing into action behind her.

 

“We need to call the Alliance! The Alliance will fight them!” she yelled back, urging Pluto towards the pass.

 

“We should warn Domocus first,” Mike responded in kind, he and Titan struggling to keep up, with Pluto’s fear and Shepard’s smaller weight giving them the advantage. “Get back to them!”

 

The comm towers were clustered in Sal’s Point, apart from the first few that had been built in Domocus. Sal’s Point’s towers were stronger. They had an inbuilt relay system too, on their own power supply. She’d listened to Kimmy explain it to Dot a hundred times.  “You go!” she yelled at Mike.  And she struck out east, forging through the forests as her stomach once more swooped with the feeling the ships brought with them.

 

Mike followed in her wake, over the farmland, scattering sheep and cows as they went.  In the distance, a dark mass was hulking down over the sea, settling over Sal’s Point even as clouds of smoke started to billow. They had reached one of the crop fields, Pluto and Titan flagging, when the klaxons started up, echoing across the fields as one by one the relays picked up the sound and began their alarm.

 

“All units, all units, stay away from the cities,” a voice crackled from her hip. In her moment of hesitation she stopped urging Pluto on and the mare faltered, her head dropping and flanks heaving. Shepard reached for the comm unit, her fingers slick with sweat, fumbling against the smooth metal.

 

“Kimmy?!” her voice came out in a high whine.

 

“Stay away from the camps we are under – _Ace_!” Kimmy’s voice wavered entirely. “God, Ace, _get out of there_! You should be out in the hills!”

 

“Kimmy!” she was wailing now, clinging to the comm unit with both hands. “Kimmy what are they?”

 

“Batarian slavers. Ace, get _out of here_! Everyone! Everyone on this channel get out of here now. Get to the hills, to the coast, away from the camps, you have to go! Shit! They’re coming in the door! Mayday Mayday Mayday this is the human colony Mindoir signalling all ships in the area, we are under attack, heavy attack, batarians are – oh God.”

 

She let the comm unit drop to the pommel of her saddle, holding it only loosely as the sounds of screams and static emitted from the tiny speaker. Behind her, she was vaguely aware of Mike thumbing through the channels, searching the white noise, until Kimmy’s voice sounded again from his hands.

 

“Mayday Mayday Mayday this is the human colony Mindoir signalling all ships in the area, we are under attack, heavy attack, batarians are – Mayday Mayday Mayday this is the human colony Mindoir signalling all ships in the area, we are under attack, heavy attack, batarians are – Mayday Mayday Mayday this is the human colony Mindoir signalling all ships in the area, we are under attack, heavy attack, batarians are-”

 

She dropped from Pluto’s saddle like a sack of spuds, heaving out her meagre breakfast onto the tilled earth. Mike’s hands were on her back, tugging her back to her feet. “We need to go, we need to run.”

 

The blue fire was crackling around the corn husks, writhing around them.

 

“Ace, stop it! You’re scaring me.”

 

She could smell something, something that was . . . cooking. She heaved again, her stomach convulsing. “I need to get to my family,” she croaked. “I need to - ”

 

Mike was hauling her up, placing her hands on Pluto’s saddle. “Get up,” he told her.

 

She fumbled her first try, had to get Mike to give her a leg up. Pluto tossed her head unhappily, snorting as Mike quickly mounted Titan. The mare followed Titan and Mike, her exhaustion evident only in her faltering steps and frequent stumbles. Titan didn’t fare much better, resisting the beginning of the climb back into the hills.

 

She pulled on Pluto’s reins at the first rise, pulling out the rifle and scope. She trained the lens on what she could see of Sal’s Point, the comms tower stretching into the sky, the outskirts of the camp, the fish processing plant, the . . . the school. Through the glass she could see small figures running between the streets, pursued by tall men in hard cases of armour, firing nets and orangey blades into crowds.

 

One of them grabbed a child by the throat, lifting it high in the air and snapping the legs, dropping it back down before proceeding.

 

Her shout was wordless, aimless, and unless Mike had reached over and seized the reins she would have been back down the trail, running for them. “Let me go, I have a gun I can-”

 

“Ace, no! Stop! Think about what they do!”

 

“I am!” she yelled.

 

Dizziness overcame her, pebbles flying in every direction, propelled by the blue fire, and then? Blackness.

 

Only blackness.

 

***

 

Dot’s last birthday, Kimmy had bought her an omnitool glove. Dad had protested, said it was far too much, but Kimmy pointed out it was half broken and, anyway, Dot was happy. She spent days tinkering with the thing, lovingly going over its circuitry.

 

One warm evening, sitting on the veranda drinking lemonade, working over her new prize, Dot had looked up and focussed on the stars. “Do you ever want to get off this planet, Ace?”

 

Sprawled over the wicker chair, she had craned her neck to see the stars. “I’d like to see the Citadel one day,” she said, “or maybe Earth.”

 

“I mean do you ever want to just get a ship, point at the nearest relay, and go?”

 

She’d smiled at Dot. “You do that. I’ll be here, waiting for the stories.”

 

Dot had laughed. “I can’t _wait_ to get out there.”

 

***

 

She came to with a throbbing headache, slung over Pluto’s back with her hands tied, Titan leading them up a steep, rocky path. Her mind stumbled into an explanation when Mike glanced back at her, his lips drawn into a thin line.

 

“We have to help them,” she groaned.

 

“With what? Your rifle? You and one rifle against a hundred batarians. How long is that going to last, Ace?”

 

The rock and stone passed under Pluto’s hooves and within a few moments she had freed her hands. She swung herself upright, noticing Pluto’s rein was tied to Titan’s saddle. “What about your family, Mike?” she asked, rubbing her wrists. Her stomach ached and she stank of vomit and sweat. Mike’s back remained stiff in front of her, he refused to look around.

 

“We’re staying out here, Ace.”

 

Her body shook, a betrayal that went deeper than Mike’s blow to the back of her skull. If she stood on her own two feet she would fall. If Mike hadn’t stopped her, she would have fainted in front of a batarian, barely clutching her rifle. She had never felt so bone tired, even after a whole night’s calving, or a full Landing Day celebration. “Has there been anything on the comms?”

 

Mike’s shoulders bunched together. “Only the distress call.”

 

Nausea rolled up against her senses once more and she tightened her fists on the pommel, concentrating on the sway of Pluto underneath her, the mild breeze on her cheeks, the prickle of goosebumps on her sweat slicked back. A very small world to hold rule over. A world where she could not be touched.

 

They stopped at a bothy, a station for hunters and herders alike. Jonas and his teenaged son were there, covering their approach with Jonas’ rifle. Jonas’ comm unit squawked static from the stone windowsill. They tethered their horses outside, Pluto sucking water greedily from a spring. Jonas took Shepard inside, running his fingers over the throbbing bruise on her skull and applying a pain killing patch to her skin. Mike and Stu remained outside with the grand total of two rifles aimed down the track. In the cold, stone hut, Jonas cupped his hands around Shepard’s face, peering into her eyes. “Listen to me, kid, we can’t do anything for them now. You hear me?”

 

Her world expanded, if only for a moment, to include him and the thought of the others beyond. “They’re dying.”

 

Jonas’ fingers tightened on her cheek. “There’s nothing we can do about that. We have to stay here. Do you hear me?”

 

He left her in the dark then, sitting outside with the others and the horses. He and his son had come here on foot, only Pluto and Titan were sweating by the spring. If she took Pluto, she could return to Domocus before nightfall. She could ride up to the batarians and –

 

He’d snapped that child’s legs, like twigs, leaving the child in pain, to come back later.

 

She felt the tickle she had begun to associate with the blue fire. She placed her head in her hands and drew her knees up to her chest, squeezing herself into a tiny ball.

 

“We need to go. Now.” Jonas moved them as the night began to fall. Pluto and Titan, better rested but still weary and chilled too, were loaded with the packs. Shepard took the rifle from Mike and struck out in the lead, moving as quietly as a hunter up the trails. Jonas, Sam and Mike were like lumbering beasts behind her, dragging the horses up the path. She ignored them, trusting to the stars she knew to guide her, and ignoring the flares of bright light as shuttle after shuttle tore off into the sky. She ate some jerky, though her mouth was dry and chewing hurt. It did something for her stomach at least.

 

Sometimes, when their path took them in the right direction, the wind carried the smell of smoke and death.

 

They made a silent, fireless camp on the ridge, Stu and Mike snatching sleep between shivers. She sat on a rock, the cold radiating through her bones, her rifle in her lap, and watched Domocus and Romy’s burn in the valleys below.

 

When the sun rose up, watery in an atmosphere filled with smoke and fumes, they could see the batarian’s plans. Holding cells had been arranged in the outskirts of Domocus, corrals really. Then the batarians had swept through the settlement, systematically, setting fires as they went. Every so often a corral was cleared and shuttles would rise up into the air, to waiting ships glittering like dawn stars.

 

She licked her lips, feeling the cracked skin under her tongue. “What do we do now?”

 

Jonas approached, a good head shorter than her now she was perched up on her rock. He lifted his scope, searching the settlement beneath them, although from this distance he could only hope to get a better idea of how much of Domocus had been razed. He sighed, lowering the rifle. “How much food you got?” he asked, his voice low.

 

“We’ll be through it today, and I haven’t seen a sheep since leaving the farmlands. Like the fuckers knew to run.” She pressed her fingers against the barrel of the rifle on her lap.

 

“We’ll stay here. The Alliance must get here soon.” Jonas stepped away, returning to the two young men and hunkering down beside them.

 

She remained on the rock.

 

By noon, she was shaking with the cold. The batarians had buzzed them twice with a shuttle but so far were content with the prey they had in the camps. They tore through the streets, one by one, crippling those they didn’t want to remove straight away. It was ruthless, based on the calculation that people would run to the aid of others, where they could be subdued and picked up later. And it was mechanical. She could see the pattern of light extinguishing and fires igniting. They had done this before. So many times before that it was routine.

 

“We need to move,” she croaked, as another shuttle flew low over their ridge on its return.

 

“Where to?”  Jonas asked her from where he held his son’s shoulders.

 

She held her rifle to the side, her joints protesting as she clambered from the rock. Pluto watched her warily, snorting as she approached. The mare shoved her soft nose against Shepard’s face when she drew close enough. For a moment, Shepard leaned into the horse’s shoulder. “If we follow the ridge down we can get to the cove and take cover in the trees.”  

 

“We’ll hemmed in by ridges on all sides and have no view of what they’re doing,” Jonas protested.

 

“Well if they come by us one more time, we won’t need to see,” she muttered. She took Pluto’s reins and started moving.

 

It was more of a trudge than a trek, stumbling down the goat paths. They rested in the lee of a boulder as the afternoon drew on. Stu was fiddling with his comms, and he made a soft noise in the back of his throat when the static suddenly cleared.

 

“Hegemony vessels, be aware, this is the _SSV Einstein_. Release your prisoners and we _will_ hold fire.”

 

“The Alliance!” Mike cheered, raising a fist.

 

“If they fire on those ships, they kill the captured colonists,” Jonas hissed, his knuckles white against his thighs.

 

“Can we contact them?” her voice sounded odd to her ears, far away.

 

“Not with this kind of comms unit,” Stu shook his head.

 

“Then I guess we wait here,” Jonas announced.

 

“I’ll head back up to the ridge,” Mike offered, climbing onto Titan’s back before anyone could protest. “I can watch for them. Direct them to us.”

 

“And if it’s batarians?” Shepard found herself asking.

 

Mike shrugged. “Well you’ve still got your gun, Ace.”

 

She sat, rifle in her lap, wishing she was back on her rock where she could see.

 

“Dad,” Stu asked, leaning into his father’s arm. “Will the Alliance get to mom and the girls in time?”

 

Jonas’ entire body seemed to tense. He wrapped both arms around his son and buried his face in Stu’s hair. “Yeah,” he said, good naturedly. “They’ll get there in time.”

 

And yet there was no exodus of batarian ships, fleeing into the skies. The shuttles had stopped their buzzing at least, but as the sun crept beyond the height of the mountains, casting them in cold shadow, they saw no trails in the sky. The long twilight heralded the final retreat of the batarian ships, echoed by hard, earth shaking tremors. She buried her face in Pluto’s neck, barely awake when the roar of a shuttle’s engines startled the horse into moving away from her.

 

It was decked in Alliance grey and red and turned its thrusters to the ground as it approached them, blowing clear debris and plants as the hatch popped.

 

Mike sat inside, a little blood on his face. A brown haired soldier in a set of grey armour jumped down, approaching them with his hands held in the air. “My name’s Zabaleta,” he called. “We’re going to take you out of here.”  His hands shook. There were flecks of dark red blood behind his ear.

_One day, my love, there will be a time to put away childish things_. Her mother had said that once. Long ago. When she and Cathy had been fighting over the patchwork blanket from Earth. Cathy had won it through their mother’s intervention, by virtue of being the younger, and the phrase had become an oft repeated joke between mother and daughter. She tangled her fingers in Pluto’s mane. “Is there anyone left?”

 

“Come on,” Zabaleta pressed.

 

She nodded, pushing her face against the mare’s hot, sweat stained skin, while Pluto gently nosed her back. She worked, not quickly because her fingers were heavy and dumb, but she removed every piece of tack from the mare’s body. She worked her fingers through matted hair, while the mare continued to nibble at the back of her shirt.

 

“We have to go,” Zabaleta insisted, helping Jonas into the shuttle.

 

What could the man fear so much? The batarians were gone. She clapped a hand against Pluto’s neck, lifted her pack, and accepted the man’s hand to guide her into the shuttle. They lifted into the air, and Jonas warned them against looking out the windows. She accepted a soldier’s ration bar, her fingers no steadier on the foil wrapping than they had been on the leather straps. The soldier crouched beside her. She met his grey eyes, seeing something dark and frightened in them as the shuttle shook, escaping the atmosphere. “Here,” he said softly, laying his hand on hers, pulling at the foil. He continued to hold her fingers as she stared into his face. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, giving her hands a final squeeze before pushing them back into her lap, crumbling a corner of the ration bar off and holding it up for her to take.

 

“Is it?” she whispered.

 

“Yes.” His voice was steady, steadier than Zabaleta’s had ever been. He was a younger man, with an odd, broken nose and brown stubble on his chin. His grey eyes were still fixed on hers. “One day. It will be okay.” He turned away from her then, taking a seat opposite alongside the other soldiers.

 

She ate, slowly, while the shuttle made its approach to the _Einstein_. When they landed it was with a dull, metallic thud on the _Einstein’s_ great flight deck. The soldiers made them wait until they had spoken a series of complicated commands to one another before they popped the hatch and allowed them out. She blinked in the overhead lighting, approached by the medical personnel who had been waiting for them. They came with stretchers and sedatives, murmured reassurances and glowing omnitools. She sat on one of their stretchers, allowed them to press a needle into her veins, where sleep overcame her.

 

***

 

“Any more?”

 

“Don’t think so, Doc. The last two parties have found no one. No one alive . . .”

 

A quick inventory had her with all ten fingers and all ten toes, but her throat was parched and her head ached. She blinked a few times, wincing against the bright lights.

 

“They destroyed what they couldn’t take.”

 

“Watch your mouth, Holland,” the second voice said sharply. “Report to Lapine, she’s been put in charge of coordinating survivors.”

 

A dark skinned man appeared in her field of view, eyes narrowed and mouth turned down. He held up a hand to stall her movement off the bed. “Welcome back. My name’s Doctor Carrera, I’m chief medical officer aboard the SSV _Einstein_.”

 

She grunted, pushing herself into a sitting position. She screwed her eyes shut, placing her palms against her temples. “My head hurts.”

 

“I’m not surprised. You had a sharp blow and a few days with little food, with your metabolism it didn’t help. We had you on saline, but I suspect you’ll be the only person on board who wants to eat the food in the mess.” The doctor started to play with his omnitool while she scanned the medbay for signs of life. The walls were grey, the beds were grey, the computers glittered orange, reflected off the dark grey decks. This place was worse than a pre-fab. She could see beds stretching out on either side of her, bodies laid out upon them, some attended by quiet, studious people in the doctor’s same grey uniform. Some were bandaged up. Some masked by screens from her view.

 

“How many survived?” she asked in a whisper.

 

Carrera hesitated. He sighed and folded his arms, leaning against her bed as he looked down at her. “We pulled medical records from the networked drives planetside. You’re Shepard?” he asked quietly, in a voice that was not intended to carry any further than their tiny space.

 

She nodded, drawing her knees up to her chest.

 

“We’ve recovered, at present, seventy three survivors.”

 

“Seventy three . . .” Sickness clung to her. Seventy three. Seventy two, if one of those was her. Seventy one, if the other was Mike. Seventy, if Stu was accounted for. Sixty nine, if Jonas included.

 

The doctor patted her shoulder. “I’m afraid we have recovered no immediate family members of yours.”

 

Sixty nine people, five did not seem so much to ask for. “Do you think they’re still down there?”

 

Carrera’s soft sigh stabbed at her heart. “We haven’t found many survivors in the last fourteen hours. The Captain’s still searching though.” He gazed at the deck for a moment, as if fighting the urge to say something more. “We should talk about your biotics, give them a test, see if the fatigue hasn’t done any harm. I notice you haven’t got an implant yet, did your – do you want to wait to see how the L3’s pan out?”

 

She blinked at him. “I’m sorry?”

 

Carrera’s mouth thinned and he stood straight, consulting his omnitool. “You do know you’re a biotic, don’t you?” he asked, flicking through text. “There’s mention of it in your notes, your doctor kept a good record.” Off her look, he swore softly. “I knew you colonists didn’t trust the Alliance, but do you really not know?”

 

“Know what?” she said, loud enough for a few of the nearby patients to stir. She winced, curling her arms around her knees. “Sorry,” she murmured.

 

Carrera nodded. “Hold here. Lieutenant Lupine is in charge of finding you a bunk, and I hope that I need this bed soon.” He tapped out a few commands on his omnitool then turned back to her. “We’ll discuss biotics later, once this place is quieter.”

 

Lieutenant Lapine was dressed in a navy uniform, a peculiar splash of colour in the med-bay. Her hair was a bright, vibrant red, piled atop her head so severely that it made her face look older than it probably was. Her eyes were green, piercing, and she stopped a few steps back from Shepard’s bed, hands behind her back. “Are you done here, doctor?”

 

“Done, but she needs fed,” Carrera said. He patted Shepard’s shoulder once more. “Go with the lieutenant.”

 

Lupine guided her into a long corridor, this one a little more noisy and distinctive, with red paint on the walls and the Alliance symbol on bulkheads. They moved through what appeared to be some kind of lounge, though it was filled with cots and refugees. She noticed a few familiar faces sleeping on trundle beds. Stu and Jonas were there, curled up around one another on one grey bunk.

 

“The _Einstein’s_ not meant for pick ups. She’s a carrier,” Lupine was saying in a soft voice, stopping at an elevator door. “We’re trying to make room for you all, but we’ll be making for Terra Nova at top speed once we’re done searching.”

 

She nodded, as if she was listening.

 

Lupine glanced at her, lips thinning. “I’m Hannah. I’ve been put in charge of coordinating the refugees. You are - ?”

 

“Shepard,” she said quickly.

 

Lupine’s mouth quirked upwards at the side. “No first name?”

 

“I prefer Shepard,” she said firmly.

 

  1. “Okay. You know, I have a daughter, maybe only a year or so older than you. Her name’s Jane.” 



 

She screwed her eyes shut against the sudden upwelling of pain, choked down on a sob. “My family are all dead,” she grated out past a lump in her throat.

 

Lupine placed a hand on her shoulder, where Carrera’s had rested so often in the last few minutes. “If there’s anything I can do, Shepard, anything at all . . .”

 

“You could have got here sooner,” she croaked, jerking away.

 

The elevator doors opened onto a mess hall and she caught sight of a familiar face sitting at the table, prodding at some unidentified gloop in front of her. Sal lifted her grey haired head and cried out “Ace!”

 

Like a ghost, Lupine faded away from Shepard’s side, giving Sal clear access. The embrace was long, but it wasn’t the one she wanted.

 

The one she wanted was back down on Mindoir, and in the past.


	4. The Lucky Ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The galaxy feels for those poor colonists, the galaxy is an outpouring of sympathy, the galaxy thanks it's stars it wasn't them.

**Earth Date 04/05/2170 – Vancouver**

 

Thandie added a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon to the French press and poured the boiling water in, watching the water blacken as it mixed with the coffee grounds. She placed her hand over the plunger, smiling as her husband approached to kiss her cheek.

“Reports continue to come in regarding the Batarian pirate raid on the human colony, Mindoir. Alliance officials confirm they have rescued some of the colonists, but at the moment cannot confirm their identities.”

“You’re still listening to this?” her husband asked softly, gripping her arm in a reassuring squeeze.

“It’s so sad,” she murmured, depressing the plunger and pouring a mug of strong, aromatic coffee. “Kaidan’s out on the balcony,” she said, pressing the mug into her husband’s hands. “I think he might be feeling a little under the weather. Be nice?” she added, eyebrows raised.

Her husband sighed, accepting the mug and pecking her cheek once more. “Boy needs to get his act together.”

 

***

 

**The Citadel**

 

  “Donnel?”

Glancing up from the pile of pads, Udina realised he was being addressed by Fialla and jumped to his feet, trying to extend a hand that was still clutching a mug of cold coffee. “Ms G’alli, how can I help you? I’m sorry, you’ve caught me at a bit of a bad time.”

The indigo skinned asari smiled and raised her hands to stall him. “Don’t worry, Donnel, it’s fine. I thought I might help you study up on batarian customs.” Her heels clicked over the floor as she picked her way over the piles of datapads. “I hear the Council has agreed to see you.”

“They had to,” he surveyed his office, frowning at the mess. “How could the batarians think they’d get away with this? They were innocent colonists!”

“I know,” Fialla said softly. “Does Ambassador Goyle plan to ask for reparations?”

He scowled at the casualty report in his hands. “She plans to ask for so much more.”

Fialla pressed her fingertips to the underside of his chin, tilting his face upwards so she could place a single kiss on his lips. “They will be avenged, Donnel.”

 

***

 

**Terra Nova**

 

Lieutenant Lupine’s legs  came to a stop outside the grate and then her head appeared, upside down, like some kind of odd, disjointed puppet. She sighed heavily. “Shepard,” she groaned, crouching down at the vent’s entrance. “Come out of there. How do you even fit in these places?”

Shepard was currently doubled up, her back on the vent’s hot underside, her shoulders and head propped against one wall, her legs doubled back so they were pressed up against the vent’s roof. She ‘fit’ by the barest of margins.

Lupine sighed heavily, bracing her forearm against the vent’s opening. She rested her forehead against her arm, closing her eyes. “Please come out, Shepard.”

“Why?” she grunted into her chest.

“Because we’re in orbit and it’s time to go,” Lupine said softly. She rocked back on her heels and extended a hand into the vent. “Come on. The Captain will kill me if I have to tell him I lost you again.”

The Captain was a tall man with brown eyes that seemed to see right through her, past the anger and the fury, past the fear and the nightmares that were lurking in the back of her waking mind. The Captain saw her as she was, the raw core of her that just throbbed with one thought. Survive.

He frightened her. She wriggled around, sliding her back along the vent until she popped out into the engineering deck. Lupine straightened, offering her a hand up, which she ignored. The _Einstein’s_ crew had donated everything they could to the refugees, but she had rejected the clothes they offered and kept her shirt and rough pants, even though the _Einstein_ ran far cooler than Mindoir did and she found herself shivering more often than not.

Lupine considered her carefully, the studied piteous look that everyone on the crew seemed to adopt when forced to talk to a refugee. Shepard folded her arms and studied the deck until Lupine surrendered and led her up out of the _Einstein’s_ belly. Lupine’s long legs outpaced her, forcing her to take a little hop or skip every other step. She wondered if Lupine did it deliberately, to make her feel like a child trying to keep up with her father striding across the fields.

The refugees were being seated in the Einstein’s grey and red shuttles. She caught sight of Mike, walking with back stooped and eyes glassy. The quiet, dead-eyed stare that so many of the refugees had since the _Einstein_ had lifted them from the rubble. She had refused Carrera’s offers of sedatives, not out of anything other than sheer obstinacy. If the rest of Mindoir’s refugees – seventy one people who were not any members of her family – wanted to go through life without experiencing it, she was going to feel every second of loneliness and heart ache. 

She’d been mulling over Mindoir’s final days since the _Einstein_ had left the system. Her planet was ash and rubble, according to the few survivors she’d bothered to talk to. She had managed a civil conversation with Sal for all of two minutes before her parents’ friend took her hands, sniffed back tears, and said in a very soft voice, “ _Ace, darling, I have something to tell you_.” She’d led her to a chair in the mess, while Lupine remained in the background, the ghost who liked to haunt them. Sal had drawn in a shaky, frightened breath. “ _Your father. Your father was trying to get to the barn where we were hiding and .  . . some of the batarians saw him. He didn’t want to lead them to us, so he went in another direction. The batarians shot him, sweetheart. It was very quick. He . . .  he died quickly, sweetheart, I don’t think there was any pain.”_

She’d remembered the batarian snapping the child’s legs.  They had been ruthless. They wouldn’t have killed unless . . . unless he’d been too much trouble. She’d met Sal’s eyes. “ _I don’t think lying to me is going to save my feelings._ ”

Sal had drawn back, hurt and shock on her face. Shepard had got up, gone for food, and sat at another table, by herself, until Lupine joined her and sat in silence while she ate.

Lupine ordered her into another shuttle, one that thankfully didn’t have anyone she knew too well in it. Most of the survivors had come from Sal’s Point, been out fishing. One of them had told her the story, how they’d been at sea when they’d seen the ships come out of the sky. One of the boats had returned, to be slaughtered. Another boat’s crew had turned on one another, fighting over whether they should go back and help. The boat sank.

Only cowards had survived Mindoir. The people who hid in the mountains or the fields or in the seas. The people who hadn’t presented the batarians with a target. Her father had never been a coward in his life, was it any wonder he had died?

The shuttle powered up, giving her the now-familiar ‘thwoop’ as its mass effect drive engaged. Carrera had been surprisingly unrevealing about biotics since he discovered she hadn’t known. She preferred it that way. Whatever biotics were, her parents, her doctor, Nicki, had seen value in keeping her uninformed.

Why though?

She jerked her head against the rest, earning an odd look from Lupine, and focussed instead on the view of space out the shuttle’s window. Stars were almost eclipsed by the glare off of the _Einstein’s_ hull as their shuttle circled around. A few of her fellow refugees put their heads between their knees to combat the nausea as the shuttle swooped down. “Hey, Doskins, watch the flying,” Lupine scolded their pilot.

But Shepard had no time for Lupine’s over-protective snapping. In the shuttle’s window frame, a planet’s horizon was arching upwards. A dark, stormy blue, with iron grey clouds, a desert belt and a northern continent that sparkled with lights as the terminator approached. “Terra Nova?” she breathed aloud.

Lupine nodded. “It’s a big colony,” she said softly. “You’ll be safe here.”

She had been safe on Mindoir. All the same, as the shuttle began its entry in the atmosphere, she couldn’t help but think about Dot, who would have loved this.

For Dot. She was going to explore every inch of this planet.

The refugees were received at an Alliance building on Terra Nova’s capital. It was almost completely unlike Mindoir, it even had sky-scrapers. This colony had no interest in log-built cabins or brick town houses. It had fully embraced the corporations, used cement and steel and glass. Inside the Alliance’s colony headquarters, she found herself standing in a pristine white room, baking in the winter sun. Each refugee was given a pack, tailored to them. Clothes, necessities, boots, and then taken through, one by one, to another medical check. As a Shepard, she was one of the last to go. She sat on a navy chair, wondering at this space-port and this garrison and everything that Mindoir had rejected.

“Hey.” Lupine approached her slowly, fingers raised in a half wave. She took the seat beside Shepard, licking her lips. “Not long now. I hear they’ve got some temporary accommodation set up. They’ve also been contacting family members-”

“I don’t have much in the way of family,” she said, scuffing her heel against the clean floor.

Lupine nodded. “Yeah, I checked up,” she murmured. “Listen. I want you to know. If you need anything, and I mean _anything_ , you can contact me.” She reached for Shepard’s hand, a tight grip that startled her into looking Lupine straight in the eye. “You have my contact address. If I can help you at all, I will.”

Every so often, her heart would fall out her chest, plunge into some black hole of nothingness that seemed to exist just outside of her consciousness, ready to grab her whenever she wasn’t thinking of something else. “Why?”

“Because we should have been there sooner,” Lupine’s grip tightened. “I’m . . . I’m really sorry, Shepard.”

She shook her head as the aide came back with a datapad clutched in his hand. “You got me out,” she said in an undertone, releasing Lupine’s hand at the same time as the aide called out her name. “Here.”

“This way,” the aide said, gesturing down the corridor.

She didn’t look back to the red haired lieutenant. Instead, she shouldered her pack and headed into the corridor, to face yet another doctor, and to be given yet another standard bunk, and to stare stubbornly at the ceiling while her neighbours cried and screamed their way through the night.

 

***

**Earth Date 14/05/2170 – Arcturus**

 

The perfect coffee was hard to find on Arcturus, and Stephen wasn’t so rare a drinker as to import all his beans from Earth, but this morning he wished he had something a little more refined to suit his palate.

The screen before him filled with numbers, scrolling to the edge and dropping off, a trickle of unforgiveable, unforgettable, inconceivable terrors. So many of them. How the Hegemony thought they could do this without retaliation was beyond him.

Certainly the Alliance was waiting for the Council’s say so at the moment, but that was mere formality. Even if the Council said no, retribution would come.

Numbers of the dead. Numbers of the wounded. Numbers of the taken. Taken to be made slaves in batarian homes.

There were plenty in the Alliance who were baying for batarian blood, the sooner the better in their opinion. Steven studied the screens in front of him, one hand on his chin, absently scratching at the beginning of a five o’clock shadow. Swift retribution wouldn’t bring back those lives lost. Nor would it sit well with the Council, who were trying so hard to hold their newest race at arm’s length.

He sighed softly, bringing up another set of data, one he’d been working on for a while. The Hegemony would claim this was piracy, they were already blustering about tragedy and rogue groups. Steven intended to play them at their own game. Operation Calm Seas had been on his drawing board for a year or so now. He was going to give the Admirals another choice. If the Hegemony were going to insist on pirates being to blame, the Alliance was going to launch the largest anti-piracy campaign the Council had ever seen.

If he could convince the admirals.

 

***

 

**Terra Nova**

Sal was sitting at the table in the dim light of Terra Nova’s long dawns. A cigarette dangled from between her fingers, a long trail of ash in the tray.

She hadn’t smoked for twenty years. There didn’t seem much point in continuing to abstain now her reasons for quitting were dead.

She stubbed out the end of the fag and lit another, sucking in hot, chemical laden air and flicking out the flame on her lighter, setting it down on the table, slightly warm under her palm. She hated this planet, its dull, grey skies, long days and large industrial buildings. It was everything she and the other first drop Mindoirans had sworn wouldn’t become of their colony. Every day, the news on Terra Nova led, not with the tragedy on Mindoir, but another platinum deposit found, another corporation offering incentive packages to miners. A cruel twist of irony, that she should end up here, while Mindoir’s embers smouldered on.

The cigarette quivered in her hands.

They had to go back. And soon. They had to rebuild. She owed it to the dead, to the people who had lived by her side for sixteen years. To forget them now would be . . .

The door opened and the young girl Sal had been waiting for walked in. “Ace,” she began, too quickly, startling the eldest Shepard child into a scowl that seemed to come so easily to her features now.

Alan Shepard had been a magnetic man, the kind of man who could muster enough support and gifted investments to make a perfect little colony for his family one day. Her heart contracted as his daughter glared straight at her. Not for the first time, her soul screamed with the unfairness of it all. Her daughters were dead, or worse. And yet Alan Shepard’s daughter was still here, still drawing breath, on the cusp of adulthood, with a future ahead of her that Sal’s daughters would never have.

She tapped her fingernails against the table. “Mike’s grandmother has arrived. She’s going to take him back to Earth.”

Shepard rocked back on one heel, folding her arms and jutting her chin in the air. “So?” she demanded, with the same enforced hardness in her voice she’d had since they’d found themselves on the _Einstein_. She was pretty. Dark hair, beginning to curl into short waves in its messy crop around her scalp. Large eyes that were too soft and sparkly to be in a face that was so determined to look angry.

“Their shuttle back to the Relay leaves in an hour.” Sal checked herself, glancing at the chronometer. “Half an hour.”

“Interesting,” Shepard muttered, walking to the refrigerator. She rested her elbow against the handle, staring into its depths.

“You don’t want to say goodbye?” Sal asked, stubbing her half-finished cigarette out. She rubbed her arms, the perfect softness of man-made fibres snagging on her goosebumps.

“Nope.” Shepard slammed the fridge door shut, leaning against it.

Sal bit her lip, feeling the little snap of pain that, like everything else now, was muted through the roar of loss in her ears. She traced a pattern in the shiny tabletop with the ash on her fingertips. “He lost his world too, you know.”

Shepard laughed, or cackled, one peal of hard, mirthless anger. “So why would I want to remind myself of that?” she asked, turning back around. She gestured to Sal in a vague sweep of her hand. “Why are _you_ still here? You miss my daddy that much?”

“Hold your tongue,” Sal snapped, far quicker than she meant to.

Alan’s daughter smirked his smirk, his court room victories echoed in this little girl. She tipped her head back, her nose wrinkling in a sneer. “Yeah. So why the hell would I want to remind myself of any of that? Do you like sitting there, waiting for me like I’m your kid?”

“Stop it.”

“You’re not my mother, okay? My mother is dead, just like Mike’s and just like everyone else we left back on Mindoir!”

Her voice was so loud that Sal raised her hands in reflex, before reasoning that this was not Mindoir, they would not be overheard and even if they were, who would care? Who would gossip at the markets tomorrow or pop their heads over the garden fence to offer unsolicited advice? Sal let her eyes close, holding on to those memories as fiercely as any other. She had to rebuild that colony. “Not everyone, honey. Some of us are right here with you, we know what you’re going through.”

Shepard’s eyes filled with tears. “Then _why_ the hell would I want to see you?” she demanded, her voice breaking. She gasped with sobs, her whole body stiffening as Sal rose from her seat. “Everything you are just reminds me of what I’ve lost.” Before Sal could reach her, she had pulled the tears back in, squaring her shoulders and hiccupping away the last of her gasps. She crossed one arm in front of her chest, palm facing outwards to ward off Sal’s arms. She turned on her heel, marching back to the door before Sal could say anything more.

In the empty rental apartment once more, Sal found herself staring out of the windows at Terra Nova’s industrial backdrop. She lit another cigarette and blew smoke at the glass. She tidied up a little and let herself out. For Alan, she could do that, at least.

 

***

**Earth Date 17/05/2170**

Alexander Torrig, Sandy to his crew, liked to make sure he had a drink on hand before departure. It wasn’t a superstition because he didn’t believe in luck. It was just a tradition. It was good to know a few bars around the docks, to hear the odd reports of piracy that didn’t make the news, to hear what colonies would always welcome a freighter, what colonies were being watched too closely by the local authorities. So it was a rye whiskey, or whatever was closest, a friendly ear and a little company that he sought the eve before they set out.

“You’re . . . Captain Torrig?”

It wasn’t quite the company in mind, but she had a good voice. He turned, leaning one arm against the bar, raising his glass before he clocked the young woman standing in front of him. Girl, actually. She couldn’t be much over fifteen. Even sitting on a stool, he was taller than her, though it didn’t seem to rattle her too much. He raised his eyebrows. “Are you in the right place, girly?”

She narrowed her eyes, pretty eyes, he noticed, and placed her hands on her hips. A kit bag bounced against her thigh as she moved and he suppressed a groan. “Are you Captain Torrig or not?” she demanded. “’Cause I can go somewhere else.”

He sighed and sipped at his whiskey, leaning further against the bar. “I don’t take on runaways, so head on home.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t even take her hands off her hips. She was wearing a dirty, real-cotton shirt over the synthetic jumpsuit that most people on Terra Nova wore. The jacket over the top was the same colonist-issued practicality, so where the hell did the blue shirt come in to it? “I can work,” she said, with only the barest hint of a quaver in her voice. It was a really nice voice, he thought again, taking another sip before he was tempted to do something silly like hear out her story.

“Go home, kid,” he said again, catching the bartender’s eye. “Jack, you know who this kid is?”

The kid had enough smarts to be wary of the bartender at least. Her body language changed, cooled, and she half turned to hide her head from Jack’s quick glance down the bar. Sandy had to smile at that, and she latched on to it like a limpet. She placed her hand on the bar, close to his elbow. “Please, I just need off this rock,” she said in a lower voice, softer. Such a nice voice.

“Listen, kid.” He laid a hand on hers, pleased to see that she tensed. “You don’t want to come to places like this and start talking like that.” His pleasure soured a little as her eyes darted up to his, guiltily taking in his podgy belly, the grey at his temple, his sun battered face and features that had never been that pretty to begin with. “If you won’t follow through,” he finished, releasing her hand.

“I _can_ work.” She withdrew her hand but didn’t step away. “I’m stronger than I look and I’m smart. Look if you won’t take me on as crew, I’ve got a little money, I just need to get off of this _rock_ ,” she spat this last bit, a vehemence that surprised him. She had reeled it back quickly enough, gritting her teeth against whatever was just biting at her tongue to get out.

He smiled again. “Go. Home.”

Her upper lip curled back to reveal her teeth and she shook her head again, pointing to the screen up in the corner of the bar where the extranet scrolled through the headlines. “Home?” she asked. “Hey, Jack?”

At this, Jack did look up from his duties, frowning at being so brazenly addressed by a minor.

The girl jerked her chin at the screen. “Show us the headlines?”

Jack frowned again, but glanced up at the screen. He waved his omniglove in that direction and the screen changed to the headlines, pictures of the clean-up crew on Mindoir filling the screen. Rubble, really, only rubble and remains of a colony, with Alliance soldiers watching the Scene-of-Crime officers picking over the bones. While Jack and Sandy stared up the images that had been saturating the extranet all week, Sandy swore he could feel the anger unfurling from her. He stared down into his glass while Jack bowed his head in respect to the girl. “No one’s looking for you?”

“Nope,” she murmured.

He groaned, and Jack shook his head. Downing the last of his whiskey, he turned to the girl. “The MSV _Verðandi_  , docking bay 19H. We leave tomorrow at eighthundred hours, local time. If you’re not waiting at the airlock, I’m gone without you, kid. If someone so much as asks about some Mindoir orphan, you’re going to be out that same airlock, and I might not wait for a friendly port.”

She licked her lips, even bouncing once on the balls of her feet that did interesting things to what that faded blue shirt did little to conceal. Then she pulled it back, nodding once. “Thanks, sir.”

“Sandy,” he corrected. “I don’t hold with that captain nonsense. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind.” He tried not to watch her as she all but scampered from the bar.

“She’s probably going to spend her night at the dock,” Jack announced, approaching with a rag in hand, as though the bar might need a polishing exactly where Sandy was sitting.

“You were never good at being the friendly ear, don’t start now. Another.” He pointed to his empty glass, reckoning he might need it this time. Not that it was luck


	5. Chance Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A human biotic can't read minds, if she could, she'd find less trouble.

**Earth Date 21/05/2170**

The MSV _Verðandi_  , somewhere in the Exodus Cluster

 

“So you’ve never seen an asari before?”

“Not in the flesh.” Shepard bit her lip as she studied the cards in her hand.

“Oh, man,” Shawn drummed his fingers off the upturned crate they were using as a table. “They are going to eat you up. They like ‘em small and cute.”

Shepard stared firmly at the collection of hearts she held, and not at the man with a shaggy crop of blonde hair, a dusting of a beard on his jaw except where a scar cut across the skin of his chin. Shawn had grey eyes and broad shoulders. So far, she’d never seen him without his leather jacket and she knew enough about cows to know that was real leather, a little cracked at the shoulders from use. When he grinned at her, she felt a tickle in her stomach that previously had only been the domain of vid stars and Mike that first time he kissed her.

“I had one on Elyisum. She asked if she could use my DNA to mix hers so she could have a baby,” Cass added. 

“So you have a half asari baby out there somewhere?” Bill asked. Bill was a big, pot-bellied man that Shepard had liked instantly upon meeting. He was watching Cass with a degree of surprise now, his cards forgotten and sagging in his hands. An array of clubs winked at Shepard.

“I don’t think it works like that.” Cass took a swig of beer and glanced up as Sandy entered their small excuse for a crew quarters. She nodded in greeting. “It’s more like she made someone that I gave her the idea for. That’s what she said to me anyway.”

“Hey, sir,” Shepard said as Sandy circled their table. He gave her the now customary scowl and drew a stool up so he was sitting behind her. He tapped two of her cards and she twisted her neck to give him a look. “Really?”

“You want my help or don’t you? These ones.”

“Don’t help her,” Shawn complained.

“You should be ashamed of taking money from an orphan,” Sandy retorted, studying the cards she held in her hand. He rested his chin on her shoulder as he did so, an odd closeness that no friend on Mindoir would have taken, but on the _Verðandi_   was almost second nature. “Besides, this game needs to finish up. We’re going to swap a few crates with the _Messifi_ in two hours. Need to get ready.”

Shawn raised one eyebrow, the one with another scar running through it, Shepard noticed, while Cass and Bill kept their faces carefully impassive. She played the cards she was told and a ripple of annoyance spread over Shawn’s face. He sat forwards, hulking his shoulders over as he concentrated on the game. With Sandy’s help, she made that frown intensify, made him swear, and laughed as, together, she and the captain got completely under his skin.

“Suit up,” Sandy announced, slapping his hands on his thighs as he heaved to his feet. The order was apparently for Shawn and Cass who stowed their cards, beers and makeshift table while Bill clapped a heavy hand on Shepard’s shoulder and guided her towards the bridge. The reinforced glass ceilings of the Kowloon class freighter showed nothing but stars as she peered into the depths of space.  
Sandy and Bill took their positions, squeezing into the narrow space between their seats and consoles. Sandy tossed her a headset. “Listen to the channel. If Shawn and Cass have any problems, let me know.”

  
She nodded, sliding the wires over her head. She was spotting them, she realised, making sure nothing went wrong. With a few taps of his hand on his omnitool Sandy brought up a few external camera feeds on the console she was at.

  
“We’re suited and sealed,” Cass’s voice sounded in her ear and on the bridge. “We’re at the airlock.”

  
“Copy that,” Sandy said. “Airlock cycling.”

  
Bill groaned as he stretched in his chair a little, fabric and metal echoing his complaints. “You hear that the _Pausin_ has a VI installed. I mean a proper one.”

  
“ _Verðandi_   has a proper one,” Sandy said loyally, stroking the nearest surface of his ship.

  
“This one controls airlocks,” was Bill’s wry retort. “Eleanor was telling me last time we were on Earth.”

  
“Who would do that?” Sandy muttered. “ _Messifi_ this is the _Verðandi_  , you should observe our space-walkers by the crane in the next five.”

“Copy that, _Verðandi_  ,” a strange voice said over the radio.

“How’s it going, Cass?” Shawn’s voice sounded only in her ear and goosebumps shivered under her overalls.

“Shut up, Shawn.” Cass’s voice was tight.

“Bet you can’t catch me.”

“I swear to God, if you float off I am _leaving_ you out here.”

Biting her lip, she glanced at Sandy. Their Captain was studying the footage and readouts from the manoeuvrable claw that was currently running its start up diagnostics. He seemed to sense her watching and glanced back over his shoulder. He smiled, raising a hand to cover the mic at his jaw. “Cass hates space walks, if Shawn’s bugging her, he’s trying to keep her mind off it.” He half turned back to his work. “Damned redneck’s good for something.”

“There she is, see her?” Shawn asked.

“Oh man,” Cass sounded somewhat breathless. “Look at the size of that crew-quarters add on. Think Sandy would spring for one of those?”

“Just think of all the fuel it would take to haul it around,” Shawn retorted.

On Mindoir, sleeping under an open sky was nothing to think twice about. Her house, before it had burned, had been almost the size of the _Verðandi_  itself. Certainly bigger than the space that was available to her crew. She curled her legs up in her chair, listening to the sounds of the _Verðandi_  ‘s crew preparing to shed their load in space for the _Messifi_ to pick up. This was what passed for home now, a shell in the ocean of deep space.

Cass’s breathing was becoming short, laboured.

“I think the _Verðandi_  ‘s prettier, don’t you?” Shawn asked cheerfully.

“Shut up, Shawn.”

“I mean one Kowloon’s much like another, but our girl’s got some panache, right? Style.”

“I know what it means, idiot. Shut up.”

“Sandy? We’re in position to start directing.”

The crew had done this before, she saw that quickly. One of their storage crates was detached from the _Verðandi_  and held upwards by the _Verðandi_ ‘s crane for the _Messifi’s_ crew to take. Even Cass’s nerves seemed to be an acceptable state of affairs. Shepard guessed it would have been like someone on Mindoir being nervous of horses, regrettable, but it couldn’t compromise function.

The operation took a few hours to complete and then the _Messifi_ and the _Verðandi_   parted ways, one lighter, one heavier, and with Sandy smiling a peculiar, smug little smile. As he passed her by, Bill placed a hand on her shoulder. “Best not mention this to anyone.”

She nodded, and found herself alone on the bridge as the two left the VI’s programming to autopilot the Kowloon to their next position. On the _Einstein_ , nobody would have dreamed of leaving her alone near any systems that could actually do something. With the odd memory of Cass’s harried breathing ringing in her mind’s ear, she left the bridge alone.

 

***

 

Life on the _Verðandi_  was,  if not monotonous, certainly routine enough for Shepard’s mind to close down. Much to Shawn’s disappointment, she picked up card games quickly, with Sandy’s talent for reading his crew passing to her; she found them as easy as open books. They were completely unlike Mindoirans, constantly aware of gossip and perceptions. There were no secrets on the _Verðandi_. Their typical run through the Exodus cluster, the Local cluster and the Terminus systems meant many weeks in each other’s company and before long, even the sight of Shawn stepping out of the bathroom naked did very little to raise goosebumps on her skin. Nothing on the _Verðandi,_ not even the stars, could remind her of Mindoir.

Bill tried to teach her about engines and shield generators, but as long as both were working she had very little interest. Cass had better luck teaching her numbers, not only the costs associated with each port, how tax could make mid-space switches a much preferable option, but also the novelties of taking fuel and mass into consideration when planning a journey. Six months after she begged Sandy to take her aboard, she was planning routes for them, finding stars to dump their cores into and judging when it would be most profitable to swing by a local economy.

She got paid for this. Cass tried to advise her to open up a bank account with the volus, but one discussion with an accountant made it clear she would have to provide her colony ID and although the suited little man promised, a hundred ways till Sunday, that no one would track her through his bank, she chose not to. Instead she kept her money on a chit.

When they docked, Shepard’s mind began to recall the last time she had been around so many humans. The others always had something to do when they were in a dock. Bill and Cass often took a few days to visit family or friends, while Shawn disappeared never to be seen again. Sandy did business and sometimes took her with him, but most of his business was not for her to know. That left her floating between cheap hotel rooms and bars, playing card games and drinking. The one time she got in a fight, because the turian hot head she was playing with couldn’t imagine how he was beat without cheating, Shawn appeared behind the metal turkey like a damned ghost. He twisted the turian’s arm up behind his carapace and swore at him, slamming him into the table and upsetting chips, drinks and cards. “Apologise to the nice lady,” Shawn had growled.

The turian did not. She and Shawn escaped the bar through a back door, Shawn grunting and clutching his ribs as they hobbled down the streets of one of Elysium’s smaller docks. She bought him whiskey to thank him, brought him to her hotel room to check he hadn’t done damage with those fractured ribs.

“I have had sex before, you know,” she snapped when his feigned protestations grew too tiresome.

Shawn laughed, reclined on the bed like something out of a stupid action vid. “Better not tell Sandy that, kid, he thinks you’re the sweetest little thing this side of Thessia.”

Shawn was, in every way, far different from Mike. Her childhood boyfriend paled in comparison to a man who was muscled and hard, dotted with scars and marks, and who made her scream and cry and laugh all at the same time. Nothing had ever felt quite like that night in a hotel room, her heart still thumping from when the turian had brought up a knife and jabbed at Shawn’s guts. Which was partly why the blue fire returned, haloing their pillows as she screwed her eyes closed and yelled his name.

Later, he stroked her bare back like she was a kitten, and purred in her ear. “You’re a biotic. Is that why you play cards so well? You read their minds, huh. Better not tell anyone about that either. Your secret’s safe with me.”

She was so grateful. And when they were docked, Shawn became her faithful shadow. This was loyalty and security and everything she had left behind on Mindoir. Cass and Sandy both noticed and commented on her cheered demeanour on ship, but saw little enough of her and Shawn when they were docked to make the connection.

Shawn was more fascinated by the blue fire than she was. He teased her. Withholding kisses and sex until succeeded in making the fire flare on command, or once tipping over a stack of datapads. He began to tell her stories when they lay exhausted under the sheets, of biotic mercenaries who could kill whole rooms with a thought.

If she’d ever had that on Mindoir . . .

The times they were docked were offset by always hearing snippets of the news. The human Ambassador for the Council kept demanding reparations, the batarians’s kept saying the humans were getting in their way, and always with the same damned pictures of her planet burning. So she would beg Shawn to take her back to whatever room they were bunking in and make her forget. He would laugh at her, and if she was good, would do what she suggested.

 

***

 

**01/11/2170**

Shepard guessed her introduction to the crew had gone smoother than their current guest’s. Who knew how much he was paying Sandy for transit, but it was quick enough for them to make a speedy getaway from the turian colony.

They took passengers occasionally. Always for a price. They were humans, mostly, although there had once been an asari who Shepard hadn’t seen much of. The woman had taken up residence in a storage container despite its lack of comforts and had spent most of her time creating mass effect fields. Shawn had been fascinated, spoken to her whenever he could. Shepard had the impression the asari woman hadn’t liked him much though, and that pleased her. The asari did once come into the crew room when Shepard was the only one there and ask “what stage are you at? I mean, how old? Are you a child?”

She had shaken her head, a little struck dumb by just how blue the alien’s skin was.

“Watch my kind, child,” the asari had told her, wrinkling her nose and glancing down the corridor as though she expected another asari to creep up on her. “We’ll lie to you.”

This visitor, though, seemed fascinated by the humans. A krogan. Massive, with sallow yellow skin and a grey crest and coal-red eyes. Like the asari, he had made a nest in one of their cargo containers, but they had only just left the relay when he sought them out in the crew room. He huffed with laughter, shaking the deck with his footsteps, and with very little effort, he integrated with the crew and the _Verðandi_. He possessed a musky smell, rather like a bull, that followed him wherever he went. There was something . . . deeply comforting about the krogan when he sat beside her to play cards. Though Shawn did not feel the same.

“You’re an infant?” he asked her, while taking her credits in their game. He studied her out of his right eye, the iris contracting as she took up the pack of cards to shuffle.

“I’m old enough,” she said carefully, aware that the krogan’s slap could probably knock her head from her shoulders. “I’m an adult by my colony’s standards,” she said.

“Though not by Earth’s,” Cass pointed out, raising her eyebrows.

The krogan chuckled, swivelling his great triangular head, studying her out of both eyes before settling on the right again. “You’re smaller than the others,” he said, jerking his chin at Bill and Cass. Cass was a tall, broad-shouldered woman with a mass of black, curly hair and Bill was no slender man. Shepard would have been smaller than them even if she was an adult. “They protect you,” the krogan added, revealing strangely small and pearly teeth when his lips drew back.

“They don’t,” she retorted.

He huffed with laughter and accepted the cards she dealt him.

Raik Moyr liked the humans well enough but he became her shadow on their cruise to Elysium. Since she couldn’t outrun him, she talked to him, and found herself thinking about him like he was a particularly intelligent dog. Cass speculated it was because the krogan couldn’t have children anymore and in the same breath warned her not to offend their guest. “He’s over seven hundred years old. If he’s a little fascinated by you, I wouldn’t argue.”

Shepard couldn’t say she minded. Moyr had more to teach her than numbers or flight plans. He started with a knife made of bone harder than any bone had any right to be. Her spare hours were spent throwing it in the cargo hold, her aim improving with every shot. Moyr then taught her to fight with him, or as close to fighting as a teenaged human girl could fight with a full grown krogan mercenary. There was only one rule: if he laid a finger on her, she was dead. Their games became fast skirmishes, which always resulted in her ‘death’ and Moyr’s deep, guffawing chuckles. He continued to indulge her, though she never won. And if Shawn should happen to pass the cargo bay, Moyr would roar in his krogan way, as if he was trying to scare her, and she would fight harder. Shawn didn’t stay for long.

“This planet you are from,” Moyr asked, one dinner time. He didn’t notice the other humans stiffen at the question. “Would you seek vengeance for what the batarians did?”

She stared at the beige stew that had been concocted for them by Bill. Moyr was sitting across the table from her, his preferred place so he could watch everyone in the room. He was waiting for an answer patiently, like a giant taking special care with a doll’s house.

She lifted her head. “They killed my family. Or enslaved them. I want them all dead.”

Moyr’s red eyes narrowed, while Cass and Sandy exchanged a look. Shawn folded his arms and sat back, watching the tableau with thinned lips.

The krogan nodded once. “I have been offered a contract out in the Terminus, where your Alliance is fighting . . .” he chuckled at the thought, “ _pirates_. The batarians want protection from your Alliance, but the Council won’t favour pirates over a recognised embassy race. Your Alliance has been clever. So the batarians want me on one of their ships. To protect them against your little humans.”

She placed her palms on either side of her tray and stared at him. “Are you going to?” she asked. She thought of Lupine, suddenly, the red haired lieutenant confronted by Moyr’s fast moving hands. In their games, Moyr ‘killed’ her with a touch, because if it were real, the krogan could disembowel her with one claw. Would Lupine understand the krogan’s brute strength?

“Why shouldn’t we just airlock you now?” Bill asked softly.

The krogan laughed, while Cass’s hand went under the table. “Watch yourself,” Moyr said, turning his head fractionally to address Cass. “That shotgun won’t penetrate my hide. You can airlock me if you want. You can try, at any rate.”

Shawn’s chair scraped over the deck as he pushed backwards, rising to his feet. Bill moved, ponderous and heavy, while Cass simply removed the shotgun from its cradle and held it in her hands.

“What the hell’s going on in here?” Sandy demanded from the hall.

“The krogan’s going to take a contract to kill Alliance soldiers,” Bill said, his fists clenched.

“No,” Shepard broke in. Still in her seat, she through Moyr was grinning at her. It was difficult to tell with krogan sometimes. “Moyr’s been offered a contract,” she corrected the others.

Sandy arched his fingers by his thigh and Cass glanced at him.

Moyr chuckled and nodded. “Not many could face me down, human,” he said. “You have a quad. I’ll kill some batarians in your name.”

The krogan turned back to his meal. After a few minutes, the others did too.

That night she dreamed of Mindoir. Dark, krogan-like shadows chased her through the streets, but whenever she turned to face them, they would fade away.

She woke with a scream strangled in her throat and fought to get out of her pod, dropping silently to the deck. Cass and Shawn were still sleeping, locked inside their glass and metal, coffin-like pods. The _Verðandi_ ’s drive core was purring, somehow reassuring to her. The rest room was as artificially bright as always, the stars glittered in the corridor’s glass ceiling and she could hear Sandy and Bill having a conversation on the bridge. She thought she heard Moyr’s name mentioned.

The krogan was in the cargo bay. He raised his head when he heard her bare feet on the deck. “Surprised you’d come here alone. Your crew was ready to throw me out an airlock.” He settled back down between two crates where the contents of his pack were spread out before him. A large shotgun caught her eye, the metal white and blue, unlike anything she’d ever seen before. “Asari made,” he told her, running his fingers over the metal.

“They would never have managed it, would they?” she asked, kneeling down in front of him. “You would have just killed us all.”

Moyr ran his hand over a strange, spiky metal shard and lifted it up, contemplating. He shifted his gaze to her. “Perhaps not you,” he said in a strange, low voice. “You’re not for the Void yet, Shepard. If you were, you would have been taken on your planet too.”

She folded her arms over her thin shirt. “I hid,” she murmured.

“Because you’re an infant.” Moyr shifted, finding a roughly hewn tunic in his pack that he threw to her. “No one would blame you for hiding, Shepard. When it is time. Make the batarians pay. The Void will howl with your name, I see that.”

She wrapped the scratchy tunic around her shoulders and leaned against the crate. “Tell me about the krogan,” she said. Moyr smiled and nodded.

“I will tell you a legend of Shiagur. You will like her.”  

 

***

 

Elysium was one of her favourite colonies.  They frequented the capital and its ports most of all and never lingered for too long. Moyr disembarked and left without much of a goodbye, which stung her more than she liked. While the others went about their business, Bill had some family on Elysium and Shawn some business contacts, she was in charge of restocking their supplies. After housing a krogan, the _Verðandi_ ’s cupboards were bare.

Elysium glittered. Unlike Terra Nova, it was an agricultural world, but it had grown so much faster than Mindoir. The city was constructed of glass and white concrete, colourful aliens prowling the streets and chatting to humans, buying up wares.

She stopped in a bar that overlooked a green, leafy park and ordered the local brew, watching some children chase a hanar. As near as she could tell, the jellyfish seemed to be enjoying the experience. It would occasionally turn and pursue them in return, fluorescing in tandem with their shouts of laughter.

“You know, my mother used to tell me I was half hanar,” a woman said to her right. She glanced around as a pale blue asari sat on the stool next to her. The alien woman had a skin tight dress on that looked anachronous on this garden world. It was grey with red darts and undoubtedly expensive. She noticed the glitter of a famous asari label on the fabric at the nape of her neck and wondered what the dress would fetch. The asari looked at her with twinkling eyes.  

Shepard looked back down at her drink. She felt as though the asari was singing a song, and that Shepard was supposed to chime in here, she just didn’t know the words. Her cheeks prickled with a blush though.

Were asari psychic? She was sure she’d heard that story before.

This asari seemed to sense her thoughts at least. She chuckled, self-effacing. “That was supposed to be a joke,” she revealed. “To break the ice?”

“It didn’t have a punchline,” she said after just a moment too long, not quite managing to keep up with this unspoken song. Still, the asari smiled at it.

The woman shifted a little closer to Shepard. “I think you’ve been warned about us, haven’t you? That we’re all sexual predators, hmm? I bet someone told you, you’d be just our type?” She signalled the bartender with a wave of her fingers and then extended that same hand to Shepard. “I’m Teyra.”

Shepard looked at the gloved hand, uncomfortably certain the asari wanted to laugh at her, but not sure quite how it would happen.  She held up her own hand, but fingers pointing skywards to indicate she didn’t want to shake.

And a spark of blue static jumped from the asari’s gloves to her hand, numbing her hand instantly and creating a surge of energy in her body that she tamped down on, hard, clenching her fists and gritting her teeth, quickly looking around to check she hadn’t created the blue fire anywhere.

“Oh,” Teyra said softly. She smiled, her lips were painted a darker shade of electric blue. “You’re a biotic.”

The unease that she had been feeling solidified into one memory of her father telling her about his days in the court rooms of Earth, when the defending attorney would suddenly turn around to discredit a witness, out of nowhere. Her father used to say it wasn’t always allowed, that the judges would overrule it, but the damage would always have been done.

“You knew,” Shepard said suddenly, staring at her. “I’ve met asari before and they don’t do that when they’re shaking hands.”

“Just trying to impress you,” Teyra assured her. She turned to the bartender. “A glass of your best red, please, and another for the young lady.”

“No,” Shepard said firmly to the bartender. “I’m just leaving.”

Some of Teyra’s pleasantness fell away from her now. She placed her hand on Shepard’s wrist. “Listen, kid.” She raised her other hand, an orange omnitool flaring around her arm. A glowing emblem appeared for a moment before the omnitool faded again. Shepard guessed she was supposed to be impressed by the emblem, but Mindoir kids didn’t know companies. “I can help you out.”

There was a thump behind Shepard and the familiar, acrid smell of krogan musk. Teyra’s eyes widened as she glanced behind Shepard.

“Serrice Council,” Moyr’s gravelly voice announced. He took the wine glass that the bartender had left, dwarfing it in his large paw. He drank it by dropping his jaw and tipping the burgundy liquid onto his tongue, swallowing the glass’s whole contents in one gulp.

Shepard leaned back, reassured that Teyra had released her arm. “My friend,” she said to Teyra. “Raik Moyr.”

“Charmed,” Teyra said in a cold voice. “Be gone, Dying One.”

Shepard studied the krogan’s red eyes. He seemed more concerned by this asari in a dress than he had by Cass and her shotgun. Why? She cleared her throat. “What do the Serrice Council do?”

“They work with amps,” Moyr growled. “And biotics. I hear they pay high rates for human biotics, they want to understand how you work.”

“Our pay is generous,” Teyra agreed. “And you’ll have the highest standard of implant. An L3.”

“You’ll be beholden to them. An asari contract,” Moyr huffed softly. “Krogan have gone their whole lives without fulfilling every clause and becoming free. It’s slavery, girl, it just has a nicer name.”

She turned back to Teyra and raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

Teyra’s pleasantness seemed to return. She shook her head. “This krogan has had a bad experience. They do not trust biotics. We at Serrice Council just want to make sure that you humans don’t meet the same fate. Biotics are not something to be frightened of. You clearly have a bit of power, you can move things without an amp,”

“How did you know that?” Moyr interjected.

Teyra shook her head. “Because her crewmate told me she could,” she said, witheringly.

The krogan dropped down from his stool, stepping between Shepard and the asari. “Go and find out why your mate is willing to sell your abilities,” he said.

The asari smirked, rising to her feet in one, smooth, fluid motion. “You’ll fight me for this girl, Dying One?”

“Go, Shepard.” Moyr grabbed her by the shoulder, giving her a shove towards the street while the other patrons of the bar started to back away.

“I don’t need you to fight for me,” she hissed.

Teyra laughed, her fists beginning to glow blue. The sickening thwoop in Shepard’s stomach was different from what she felt when an eezo core powered up or a relay caught a ship in its field. This felt like a boulder had settled in her stomach and wasn’t inclined to leave. Teyra jerked her head towards Shepard. “Listen to the child. There aren’t so many krogan in the world that you can throw your life away.”

“I won’t,” Moyr said firmly. “But I will give her the time to confront her crew.”  Without facing Shepard, he addressed her. “This isn’t a batarian, but . . .”

“I’ll take it,” she said, turning on heel and running. The explosion of blue fire behind seemed to pop in her ears and in her soul.

By the time she found Sandy in the docks, news of the fight had spread like wildfire. Security officers were everywhere, stopping every asari and krogan they saw. Sandy took one look at her face and retreated to the _Verðandi_ to listen to her whole story. It started with that first bar brawl months ago. His face turned stony when she told him about Shawn, but all that changed when she told him about the biotics.

When Shawn, Cass and Bill joined them, they sat around the crew quarters.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Cass announced, glaring at Shawn. “She’s a child.”

“She’s sixteen,” Shawn retorted. He hadn’t looked at her once.

“She’s a biotic,” Bill corrected them. He at least had the decency to look at her, to give her a sorrowful shrug. “I heard a story about this woman who went mad on a ship, ripped the crew to pieces. The Alliance found them adrift and had to kill her. She was wearing their skins as a cloak.”

“So,” Shawn glanced at Bill. “That’s why I contacted Serrice.”

“But for how much money?” Sandy asked. He was the only one who remained beside her, but it had changed. She could feel his discomfort. But still he was . . . loyal, for want of a better word, to her. To any of his crew.

Finally, Shawn looked at her, but with no warmth, no love. She felt sick. “A lot,” he said. “She’d be fine. They’d look after her. We’d be rich.”

“ _We_?” Cass repeated.  “I’m not selling anyone to any asari. No matter how biotic they are.”

“I thought I was your friend,” Shepard said softly.

Sandy shifted his weight while the others stared at their hands. “We can’t leave her here while the asari is around,” he said at last. “At least, not without some funds to hide. Shawn, this month’s pay is hers. Now. Give it up.”

“Fuck that!” Shawn snarled.

“If you don’t, you’re staying here too,” Sandy said, calmly. “Look. Listen to me. All of you. The _Verðandi_ is my ship.” He looked at her. “What goes on here is my business.”

“You think I’m dangerous,” Shepard said softly. She stood, brushing her palms on the side of her dungarees. “You know Moyr was more afraid of that asari than he was all of you? I’ll take the money,” she added to Shawn, brushing past Bill’s leg to reach for her pack.

“You’re a good kid,” Sandy said. “But . . .”

“No,” she nodded, shouldering her pack. “Wouldn’t want me to wear anyone’s skins now, would you?” she muttered, heading for the door.

“Where will you go?” Cass asked.

“Somewhere I can wear skins.”

***

**02/12/2170 _– SSV Einstein_**

Lieutenant Lupine had two messages waiting for her when she came off shift. She hit the mess first, but checked them on her omnitool as she sat with her ramen. One looked like spam, from a hotel on Elysium. The second was from her daughter, a short letter wishing her well and begging her to be home in time for graduation.

 

She flicked through to the spam mail accidentally.

_Hannah,_

_You said you would help me. I need your help now._

_Shepard._

 

Lupine left the rest of her ramen and headed for the captain. She wasn’t due any shore leave, but the _Einstein_ could get to Elyisum faster than any commercial vessel.  Zabaleta was still having nightmares about the damned planet, Mindoir still tugged the heartstrings of anyone in the Alliance. And damn it, she had made the girl a promise.

 

 


	6. Fortune Favours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Shepard makes choices.

**21/04/2171 – Earth - Geneva**

 

The letter read:

 

_Dear Ms Shepard,_

_We regret to inform you that the remains of Alan Meredith Shepard and Harry Thomas Shepard have been recovered and identified by the Mindoir Recovery Project._

_We will hold the remains for a period of five years, before interring them on Mindoir as part of the Recovery Project, unless you contact us with alternative arrangements._

_Sincerely,_

_Dr Elizabeth Shaw-Williams_

_Chief SoCO_

_Recovery Project_

 

She read it several times, calling it up on her omnitool as she paced her apartment. Today, of all days, such a letter had arrived. Hannah and her husband were both on ship, their daughter Jane sitting exams on some far off station. All that surrounded Shepard were medics and strangers.

She wasn’t allowed to eat, or to leave her sterilised quarters until after they’d cut into her brain. It took some convincing, but with Hannah’s advice and the money from the Recovery Project, these doctors had been selected and she agreed to it. The Alliance would have paid for the surgery, had offered to, but instead she chose to buy her implants herself. Call it one last hurrah of Mindoiran pride. Or stubbornness.

She fingered the skin at the nape of her neck where they had tattooed the incision line. She had seen the implant lines of L2s and even L1s, seen where the metal seemed to sprout seamlessly from the skin. There was the option to create a flap of nerveless skin to hide it, which she rejected for now. She would grow her hair instead, cover the mark by that.

Shawn would have been disappointed by her research into biotics. Serrice Council had still got involved, but only because the scans of her body had revealed surprisingly high concentrations of eezo nodules. An asari contractor appeared, a lovely, polite matriarch who apologised for Teyra straight off the bat. She had to admit she liked the asari, and appreciated the woman’s advice on amps and static shocks.

But it was an L2 from the Alliance who was the most useful. He was a few years older than her, one of the Alliance’s first biotic soldiers, and he had all the advice in the world. Things like how to make the nausea go away when someone manipulated a mass effect field, how to handle the increased metabolism – even warnings that she would only get hungrier with the implant.

No, biotics could not read minds. She wasn’t going to be able to kill a room with a thought either, not according to Matriarch Calline. She would be able to manipulate mass effect fields, and depending on how much physics she studied, she would be able to do so with great precision. Killing people through maths wouldn’t have particularly appealed to Shawn, but she had spent much of the last few months studying physics. She knew the basics, but found the rest of it coming instinctively. Of course these rules of speed and mass existed, how else could the world exist? Even without an implant, Calline and Oliver had been prompted to teach her the ‘throw’ mnemonic. She could exert enough force to topple a glass now, if she tried hard enough. The nose bleeds were fairly uncommon now too.

But Oliver had been given a new mission and Calline called back to Thessia. Both had been apologetic, but both were gone.

It was just her, her sterile room, her tattooed skull, and her letter on her omnitool.

 

***

 

28/04/2171

_Shepard,_

_Took me a while to track you down. So you’re on Earth. Well I hope they treat you better than your old crew._

_You owe me, I will collect._

_Raik Moyr_

 

***

 

03/05/2171

 

_Hey – how’s the head? Still sore? I’m sure you’ll get used to it. I’ve been talking to Ensign Camikakiee here and she tells me she drank lots of orange juice after her surgery and it made her feel much better. I’ve sent you a get-well present, a little something I picked up on Terra Nova, hope you like it._

_Jane did well in her exams, but she tells me she’s having last minute second thoughts about joining the Alliance. What good is my advice? I’m only her mother. Since Jane’s set herself against any course of action I recommend, I hope I can at least pass on some of my world experience to you. If you are thinking of the Alliance, sit the officer cadet entrance exams. You’re a clever girl and a biotic too. The Alliance could sure use someone like you._

_Anyway, I wish you all the best. Feel better soon, kiddo._

_Hannah_

 

***

 

19/05/2171

 

Every news channel on the extranet was carrying the story, so she took to the streets. Every vendor at every stall was talking about it, so she relocated again to the mountain parks. It wasn’t Mindoir, the shores of Lake Geneva were more marked by humanity than Mindoir had ever been, despite their status as a protected area. Still, it was mountain and forest enough for her.

In the mountains, the birds didn’t talk about batarians withdrawing from their embassy on the Citadel. There was no crowing of victory here.

She skipped stones over the glacial waters with the blue fire she now tried to think of as ‘biotics’.  Vectors and gravity wells traced the slate over the water’s surface in her mind’s eye. It was as easy as a game of pool, lining up trick shots to aggravate Mike . . .

Mindoir rose in her memory again, a cork bobbing on the waters, unable to stay submerged for long.

They called it ‘victory’, as if the batarians leaving the Citadel in a show of political irritation could make up for those people dead.

For the first time, she allowed herself to think about Mike and what would have happened if he hadn’t stopped her from charging headlong to Sal’s Point. Would she be dead, or would the batarians have taken her too? She lifted a handful of pebbles and sent them skirting into the bush with her mind. She didn’t know what the batarians thought of biotic slaves, or if they’d have noticed. Her stomach was grumbling so she cracked out a silver wrapped protein bar. She rarely travelled without them though. Her increased metabolism, evident even before the implant, wouldn’t have been a favourable trait for a slave.

She sat on a boulder that jutted out from the steep shores and watched a group of children race their kayaks out in the lake. Her implant ached. The combined exertion of the hike and the biotics had her skull tingling. It was one of many things she hadn’t allowed herself to consider, what the batarians did with their slaves. Likewise, her sisters, her clever, beautiful sisters.

Since reaching Earth, under Hannah’s wing, she’d thought about Shawn a lot. The medical facility in Geneva was sterile, professional, and asked very little of her in return. They wanted to track her progress, asked for biannual medical reports to study what a late biotic developer like her could do. She agreed to their terms without hesitation. It seemed acceptable after Shawn’s deception.

Her father would have hated Shawn. He would strung Shawn out to dry in vengeance for his actions.

But now her father’s remains had been identified on Mindoir. He wasn’t even a slave, somewhere, in some batarian work camp or . . . wherever. He was a pile of ash, waiting to be reclaimed.

Her head hurt.

The Alliance offered great incentives for biotics, trying to encourage them to join up. Hannah and the _Einstein’s_ crew, smart and safe in their uniforms, even Jane seemed to have grown up in Alliance blues. She wasn’t going to join an army to cling to the desperate idea of a family.

Out on the lake, one of the older kids doubled back to check a straggler’s progress.

But to defend . . . to be there the next time a child wanted to run headlong home, afraid of the ships descending. Surely that was something worth having? Even her father would have appreciated that, for all his independence and reclusiveness.

What did it matter? He was ash. And she was not.

 

***

20/06/2171

_Shepard._

_I hope you read this. I hired a private investigator after you left Terra Nova and she found your address a few months ago when you surfaced in Geneva. I’ve been holding off, writing and rewriting this damned letter so many times. You made your point clear when you left but I have to believe that you being back on the grid means something._

_You are your parents’ daughter. You’re going to go your way no matter what. I just want you to know you will always have a home with me. Whenever you need it._

_Some of us are going back to Mindoir. The MRP is helping us settle again. We picked the crystal river for our basecamp, you remember it? We’re going to dig a bunker under the old volcano, should be safe. A bolt hole. We’ve had to accept a little help though, I’m trying to keep the corporations away but it’s not like it was seventeen years ago._

_I don’t really think you’re coming back. I don’t think a lot of us are coming back. But I have to. I made a home here, I raised a family here, and I will never let bullies chase me from this place. I will rebuild as many times as it takes._

_If you ever want to visit, we’d love to see you,_

_Sal_

 

***

 

31/07/2171

 

_Hey kid,_

_Cass said we owed you money so here it is. No hard feelings._

_Sandy_

 

***

01/08/2171

_Sal_

_Crystal river’s the best site. You need to accept an Alliance garrison for people to really feel safe._

_Shepard._

 

***

 

10/09/2171

She spotted Hannah Lupine across the plaza, the officer’s bright red hair piled up atop her head in a tight bun even when the woman was in casual clothes. She noticed Shepard’s wave and raised a hand in greeting, picking her way through the tables to join Shepard. “Your hair’s longer,” she said in surprised greeting.

Shepard grinned, reaching up to finger her ponytail. “Yeah, a little regeneration after the surgery. I just asked they went a bit longer than it was before.”

Hannah smiled at her and took a seat. “Have you been here before?” she surveyed the café in a very brusque, businesslike manner, clocking the waiters, the wrought iron tables and chairs and the white embroidered table cloths. It made Shepard giggle. “What’s good?”

“Pretty much everything,” Shepard said, waving her omnitool over the menu chip. “But the fondue is great.”

“Okay, let’s have that.” Hannah tapped the solid light display with her fingers. “You finally picked up one of these things, huh?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged, holding up her hand to look at the orange display. “I got a lot of money from the MRP so . . . thought I’d treat myself.”

Hannah chuckled. “You don’t sound too impressed.”

“It’s alright, I guess. This is cooler.” She cupped her hand above the fork and it leapt upwards, overshooting her fingers by a few inches and hovering in the air for a moment before the field dissipated and it dropped into her palm.

Hannah applauded. “I’m impressed. They tell me that the fine control stuff is harder.”

Folding her arms and leaning against the table, Shepard shrugged in a rare moment of modesty. “I find it all easy,” she admitted. “I can see it. The way the gravity moves.”

It gave the conversation a pause, while Hannah fussed with her utensils and Shepard waited for their drinks to arrive. Hannah recovered first and delivered news about her husband and daughter, while Shepard listened. The Lupine’s were nothing like her family, but Hannah’s pride was familiar. Part of Shepard was smiling and laughing with the stories, and part was thinking back to the dust on Mindoir.

When Hannah went to pay for the meal, Shepard reached out to stop her. “This one’s on me. As a thank you.”

“No, last I checked you were still unemployed.”

“Please, I’m living in a medical facility. Let me. I want to say thank you.” She swept her omnitool over the paypoint and clasped her hands, resting her chin on her knuckles.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Well I also want to apologise,” Shepard added with a shrug. “Because I’m not going to sit the officer cadet entry exam.”

Hannah stirred her coffee, her spoon clinking off the side of her cup. “I don’t take offense to that,” she said after a moment. “But, can I ask why? Are you thinking twice about the Alliance?”

“No.” Shepard shook her head. “But they want me for the marines. There are some pretty impressive incentives for my kind.” She flicked her fingers, creating a small cascade of sparks, waves of gravity that buffeted the table’s accoutrements gently, like ripples on the lake. “So, you know, I hope you can forgive me.”

“Hey.” Reaching over the table, Hannah placed a hand on Shepard’s arm. “That stuff’s just . . . magic tricks and voodoo. You’re the one that’s important, honey.”

“Honey?” she repeated, arching her brows and smiling.

“I hate to break it to you, but the Lupines have you now.” All the same, Hannah smiled too.

Shepard patted Hannah’s fingers. “Aren’t you Lupines all Alliance?”

 

***

02/11/2171

 

_Hi._

_Baby, I hope you read this. I’m so sorry for what happened back on the_ Verðandi _. I shouldn’t have said those things I said, I should have defended you more. In truth I was just scared. You’re so powerful, so brave, so clever, I needed you and that frightened me._

_Sandy put me off ship a little while ago, I’m on Terra Nova at the moment, but I’ve got some plans to get me off this rock. This is where we picked you up, remember? I know how much you hated it. Baby, can you send me some creds so I can get out of here? I know I don’t have the right to ask you anything, but I love you, I know you still love me._

_I’ve sent account details with this message,_

_Shawn_

 

She deleted the message and discovered that with the right application of physics, she could weaken the structural integrity of metal, warping it considerably inside a gravity field. Her instructors were intrigued.

 

***

12/01/2172

 

She tolerated the doctors and the fussing. No small part of her liked to show off, breaking their previous records for strength and force.

Today she was lying in bed in her small suite of rooms with their view onto the mountains. Her head thumped, her bones rebelled against every slight movement and her muscles ached. One of her least favourite doctor had snidely said that even she would have limits and it was only a surprise she hadn’t hit her wall before now.

She had wanted to point out that in doing so, she had burned out an amp and mastered the art of a rippling shockwave that had disrupted half the equipment in the lab. The Alliance scientists had asked her to repeat the mnemonic so many times she had reached her wall. But they were confident they could teach the technique to some of their other biotics. The others were welcome to it, she never wanted to lift her arm like that again.

A gentle chap on the door preceded Matriarch Calline’s entry. She smiled at the sight of Shepard all sprawled out in bed and leaned against the doorframe. “I hear you over-exerted yourself,” she said, clasping her gloved hands.

“Hey,” Shepard lifted her head and regretted it. She sank back into her pillows and groaned in place of a self-effacing laugh. “Yeah. A little.”

“Was bound to happen eventually,” Calline assured her. “When I was a maiden I once spent all night-” she hesitated suddenly, “I forget, how old are you again?”

“Old enough to hear that story, but I’m not sure my stomach’s capable,” she retorted.

Calline nodded gracefully. “Have you had something to drink recently? Tea will do you a world of good. Asari tea would do even better but still . . .” she headed to the kitchen, talking away the whole time. Shepard had to concentrate very hard on not-laughing. It felt so very odd to have a bright blue, thousand year old alien fussing with her kettle while she was laid out on the sheets. She remembered a cramped Kowloon freighter where they had warned her against asari.

Calline returned with two cups and sat on the side of the bed, handing her one and keeping the other for herself. She blew steam from the surface and sipped it. “Not bad.” She nodded thoughtfully after she’d savoured the taste. “I will bring you some asari leaves though.”

Shepard nodded. Truthfully, the smell of the tea made her stomach churn. “I wish more aliens out there were like you,” she said, disarmed by pain and exhaustion and kindness.

“And I wish more out there were like you.” She smiled at Shepard and placed a hand on the blankets that covered Shepard’s knee. “You know, if you’re not sure about the Alliance, Serrice Council would love to have you.” She finished her sentence with a lilt in her voice, teasing and yet a little desperate too.

“You’re helping me right now,” she said softly. “I want to help others.”

 

***

11/04/2172

 

The recruiter glanced twice at her form and then once back up to her. “Mindoir?” he asked.

“Mindoir,” she affirmed. A few of the others in the recruitment office glanced up at that magic word.

“Alright, kid, but you won’t find vengeance here,” the recruiter said, shaking his head as he palmed her form off his hard light display and moved on to the next.

She didn’t respond to him, though she wanted to. I would have gone with the krogan for vengeance, or the asari. She didn’t say that or anything else as she moved into the room with the others who had enlisted.

She hadn’t come to the Alliance for vengeance. 


	7. The Right Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Private Shepard's first posting is not all she had dreamed of, but you know what they say about being in the right place . . .

**Earth Date: 01/12/2174**

**Watson, Skepsis System**

 

Shepard hissed through chattering teeth as she slipped on a patch of ice in her unwieldy armour and nearly lost her balance. Her head thumped as she leaned into the wind and kept on marching. She didn’t want to go to the medic and ask for another ration increase, but her options were limited by the overclocked metabolism. Another increase would jump her calorie intake to well over 4000 a day. Calline had mentioned that this would likely be a side-effect of using her biotics in combat but it was one thing said in the comfort of a hospital room, another in front of a busy Mess Sergeant who already gave her odd looks when she came back for seconds.

“Hey, Shepard,” a friendly voice called out. “You want to watch your footing there.”

She gritted her teeth but forced a smile and a friendly nod at Private Richmond. Irritating as his mind reading jokes might be, he was still on her side. Not everybody was.

The barracks on Watson were little more than prefabs, with few home comforts. They were there, ostensibly, to uphold the contentious Rekjavik Compromise and prevent the three colonist interests from needing too much armament for protection.  In practice they spent more time breaking apart fights and keeping the colonists from tearing the little planet apart.

Her first posting out of boot camp, with honours and graduating as Private, First class? And then she got stuck with a babysitting gig.

It’ll be good for you, they all said. Deep space missions like that, out in the Traverse? It would look great on her record. Never mind the small minded idiots she’d be working with. Never mind Lieutenant Al Daniels.

A gust of icy cold wind howled through their fort and chilled her fingers. She reached her posting on the walls and hunkered hunkered down beside a wind break with another Private. Jane Lupine tilted her head to the side, red hair brushing the collar of her armour, and held a flask up. “Drink this, Shepard.”

“Tell me it’s not that salt lick again,” she muttered, unscrewing the cap and sniffing the pungent concoction inside.

“Come on, colony girl, buck up and drink up,” Jane said, lifting her rifle back over the buttress and peering down the scope.

“This isn’t standard colony fare,” Shepard felt obliged to point out.  She drank. Vile as the stuff may be, it was all that was sustaining her between meals at the moment. Despite herself, she slurped down the salty stock greedily.

“When are you going to request more rations?” Jane asked, her attention so focussed on what was out there in the wind swept wastes that her tone sounded almost impassive.  Shepard knew better.  This was as close as her red headed friend came to pleading.

“Soon,” Shepard said.

Jane’s gaze shifted to focus on her and she shook her head slightly. “If you faint again, the LT won’t have you on the squad.”

With a sigh, Shepard ran her hand through her hair. “I’d figured that much out for myself,” she muttered.

“You need to stand up for yourself.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Shepard snapped, too quickly because Jane’s green eyes narrowed and turned away from her. Shepard took another glug of broth and followed Jane’s gaze. The European’s camp settlement was a few klicks to magnetic north and the lights were a hazy orange shine on the ice-ridden clouds. “Sorry, Jane,” she said softly. “I just . . . I’m hungry, that’s all.”

Jane said nothing for a while, her cheek cradled against her rifle. Eventually, she shifted, trailing one hand over the Avenger’s side. “My mother bought me this scope,” she said. “The LT doesn’t like it.”

“I know,” Shepard said.

Curling one side of her mouth upwards, Jane raised an eyebrow. “Let me finish? I’ve been around the Alliance my whole life so you’re just going to have to trust me when I say the LT is the exception. Most squad leaders don’t care if you customise your kit. Most squad leaders will let you buy a set of armour with your share of prize money. Daniels is not most squad leaders. He doesn’t trust biotics, I know that. But are you going to let his stupidity make you any less of a soldier?”

Shepard grimaced and folded her arms over her chest, holding the flask loosely in the crook of her elbow. “Right now I’ll settle for not being so hungry all the time,” she murmured.

“There must be other biotics suffering like you,” Jane said. “You need to speak up.”

Rolling her eyes, but only because she was behind Jane and Jane could not see, Shepard looked out over the fort. Most of the squad were on watch but she could see Richmond and Coulter kick ice shards across the inner courtyard.

“Heads up,” Jane said softly, shifting her weight. “See them?”

Shepard lifted her rifle and peered down the scope. Dervishes of ice and dirt whipped across the road to the main encampment, but little else. “I don’t see anything.”

“There, two o’clock.”

“I’m looking,” Shepard insisted. “Oh I see them! Damn your eyes are good, Jane.” She pressed her fingers towards her cochlear implant. “Shepard to Lieutenant Daniels.”

“Report, Private,” the radio crackled.

“Private Lupine has eyes on the delegation. They’re coming from the north approach but I expect they’re going to swing round to the east.”

“Why would they do that?”

Shepard hesitated. Why would they do that? It’s what she would do but _why_? “Because that’s what looks like the front door, sir,” she said at last. “They’re colonists, sir.”

“Stay up there and keep eyes on them,” the LT announced.

“What do you know?” Jane asked softly. “They’re tracking east.”

For the rest of their shift they were kept on the ramparts while the European camp’s delegates argued with the LT in the prefabs. When they left, they left with their faces like thunder. “I see the LT’s silver tongue has won us yet another diplomatic battle,” Jane said dryly.

Shepard nodded to one of the colonists she caught staring at her. The man said something to his companion and both turned to look at her. This time she waved. She’d be damned if she was going to let Daniels be their only impression of Alliance soldiers. The first man waved to her in return.

“Hey Shepard,” Coulter announced as he approached. “You’re relieved. Head inside and warm up. You too, Lupine.”

Back inside a wall of warmth hit Shepard with enough force to make her reel. Jane lent her a hand, guiding her down the hallway to the mess. She left Shepard with a pointed look, peeling off her gauntlets as she went. With a resigned nod, Shepard headed towards the supplies officer, raising her hand in greeting as the older man looked up at her. “Hello Shepard,” he said, sitting back in his chair and clasping his hands behind his head. “What is it this time?”

“I need a larger calorie allowance, sir,” she said, falling into an at-ease position.

Oska’s eyes widened. “Again?” he asked, incredulously. “Where do you put it all, Private?”

She longed to demonstrate, to lift a cup or detonate a barrier field, but Oska would panic. Instead she simply shrugged. “Biotic metabolism, sir. I’m willing to undergo another medical check up if necessary.”

“Not necessary,” Oska informed her, making a note on his pad. “We got a memo from the Alliance suggesting minimum  caloric intake for biotic soldiers at 4,500 per day. I though it better to wait and see if you needed it though.”

“Sir?” Shepard was amazed her voice didn’t crack. Her heart was pounding in her ears. “Sir, if I’m not fed properly, I cannot use my biotics.”

“Yeah, seems like a bit of a design flaw to me,” Oska muttered. “What use are you biotics supposed to be if you eat us out of house and home?”

A small, fragile wall inside Shepard cracked. “Off the top of my head, sir, I can throw your table across the room with a force of 650 Newtons with a flick of my wrist, but I can see why that might not impress you, _sir_.”

Oska pinned her with a look. “Indeed, Private. Consider yourself dismissed.”

***

Her punishment was to pull double duty on cleaning shifts. When she was alone, she carried out her task with the liberal usage of biotics, relishing the extra calories that helped her fine control. She didn’t dare demonstrate her abilities in front of others, but making the brushes dance for her own benefit amused her.

She joined her comrades off-shift in the mess hall knowing that she should be more tired, more grimy for someone who had allegedly cleaned the head by hand.  She was taking a perverse pleasure in knowing Oska couldn’t find fault in her work. The Sergeant was thankfully nowhere to be seen in the mess as she pulled a chair up between Jane and Coulter, taking note of the game they were playing. “Deal me in?” she asked.

Richmond looked up from his hand and snorted. “Yeah, right. You robbed us blind last time. Switch those biotics off and maybe I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t need biotics to read your tells, Richmond,” Jane drawled, slapping her cards down on the table. “I fold. You’ve got an ace in the hand.”

Jane undoubtedly knew that for certain, but more because the numbers just made sense to her than any tell Richardson had. Shepard thought understood counting cards until she’d started playing with the Lupines, for whom calculus seemed to be taught at birth. She had realised that she played poker against people, not against hands. Richmond made a face as the others on the table checked the river and crumpled under Jane’s prediction. Jane rocked back in her chair, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips.

“Come on,” Coulter said to their defacto leader. “Deal Shepard in. At least it’ll give Jane someone else to take creds from.”

While Shepard tried to hide her surprise about this unexpected backing, Jane announced she was going to make another pot of coffee. She was barely on her feet when Lieutenant Daniels appeared in the doorway, clad in armour and with a face like thunder. “Sir!” came a variety of hails, everyone leaping to their feet to salute.

Daniels seemed surprised to see them, his gaze darting to the prefab’s grey, solid walls. Shepard noticed a sheen of sweat on his forehead.  “Suit up,” he said, heading back the way he’d come.

“He’s actually snapped,” Richmond whispered, earning a few dirty looks. He shrugged. “Did you see him?”

“Come on,” Shepard tucked her chair under the table and jogged to the door. She was aware of the others following her lead, hurrying to their lockers where their grey protective shells lived. Shepard wriggled out of her civvies shoulder to shoulder with Coulter, paying none of their squad any heed as she stood on one foot to drag her undersuit on. The black fabric clung to their every curve and bulge, more indecent than a communal shower for what they suggested rather than revealed. The fabric was porous, embedded with circuitry to filter their armour’s metered out shots of medigel and other necessaries. Shepard was suited and booted a little behind Jane, joining the rest of the squad out in the court where the snow fell.

Jane spoke out of the corner of her mouth as they stood in formation. “I got a bad feeling about this, Shepard.”

Shepard couldn’t answer without drawing Daniels’ attention.  Their lieutenant was marching their ranks, inspecting their armour and weapons with a grim, hard face and asking Coulter to reassemble his rifle twice. He stared intently into Coulter ‘s face as spidery grey flakes of snow began to drift down from the skies. Something in the Chief’s face seemed to reassure their LT, slightly, enough for him to back off and mutter something in Oska’s ear. “The Chinese settlers have made their move. So the Europeans are preparing to meet them. This is in blatant disregard of the Compromise.” Daniels’ voice cracked in the ice laden air. “Our orders are to maintain peace on Watson. We are going to follow our orders.”

At the edge of her vision she could see Jane’s flame red hair quivering as the woman tried not to break formation. Snow was building on her shoulders.

“We will suppress the insurgent activity on Xi Rise,” Daniels continued. Shepard would have sworn she could feel the ripple of concern among her fellows. “And if the People’s Federation army or the European army wants to mess with the Alliance, we’ll show them what we can do!” He waited, an expectant pause lurching along behind him, one that died in his wake. Daniels waved to Coulter. “You! Take Lupine and Shepard and keep watch on the European camp. If they so much as crack their doors open for a looksee, I want you to take care of it.”

“Sir,” Coulter’s voice came from further down the line, ringing out over the yard and seemingly shaking the snow from the rafters. “To clarify? Am I to open fire on the colony military units?”

“Yes! Chief! You are to open fire! We are the Alliance!” Daniels exploded forwards in a rage of spit and venom, his face reddening. “Now if there are no further questions?” His eyes popped as he glared round the squad. Shepard could feel her skin crawling with eezo and she tamped down on it hard. “Move out!”

Slotting her helmet over her head she fell into step behind Coulter and Lupine, taking the base’s north gate towards the Grizzly. “Well,” Lupine said, voice soft even through the crackle of her helmet’s speakers. “Richmond was right.”

Coulter ignored her, hauling his gear into the Grizzly and barely waiting for the two women to join him. He didn’t remove his helmet even inside the armoured vehicle. Lupine was usually happier behind a visor anyway so Shepard sat in the back and left her own helmet on, the hard seal offering little protection from the atmosphere in the car.

“The Alliance expects some level of discretion from its soldiers,” Lupine said after the Grizzly flattened a bump in the track.

“Our orders are to maintain peace,” Coulter said. His fist was tight around the joystick. “The Compromise says that they all leave each other alone. They fight, they break the Compromise.”

“The Lieutenant has been pushing everyone,” Lupine murmured. “He’s stirred the pot too much.” Lupine subsided, her body jostling slightly from side to side as the Grizzly rocked on its suspension.

Shepard reached up to grab a handle and leaned into the driving section. “We’re not going to help if we camp outside their doors.” She was surprised at the quaver in her voice. Neither Lupine nor Coulter looked at her but Coulter grunted.

“We’re stationed here. What else are we supposed to do but patrol?”

“We patrol where their security forces used to patrol. Back on Mindoir we resisted the Alliance posting a garrison there for years. We didn’t want to be looked after by some soldiers.”

Now Lupine inclined her faceless visor in Shepard’s direction. “And look how well it worked out for you guys.”

The helmet shielded her face, the hurt that she knew she was showing hidden behind tempered glass and steel. “I’m not saying we were right. Colonists are looking for a new start. Now not only did old enemies follow these guys to Watson, but then the Alliance comes too, sticking its nose in.”

Coulter brought the Grizzly to a stop and unbuckled himself, rising to his feet. “What’s your point, Shepard?”

She sucked in a breath, looking to Lupine before Coulter cleared his throat, prompting her to spit out the first thing in her head. “We’re escalating matters just by being here. If we camp outside that settlement the first thing they’re going to do is send out their security. We’re not playing this smart.”

“Smart isn’t Daniels’ way,” Lupine said dryly.

Coulter rocked back on his heel and crossed his arms. “I’m open to ideas.”

 

***

 

Coulter’s words had seemed so reasonable inside of the Grizzly with their helmets locking a hard seal on their suits and their guns safely holstered in each magnetic grip. So Shepard had simply blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“How you doing?” Jane’s level voice murmured inside her ear. She resisted the urge to raise her hand to help the implant. Doctors said it wasn’t necessary, that the cochlear speakers needed no assistance to make their words heard, especially not the meagre pressing of a finger against the outer ear, but the gesture was almost universal among Alliance soldiers. Universal like the distrust of the ability to move things with your mind. Universal like the looks a fully laden plate brought.

So instead of lifting her hand, Shepard lifted her chin and looked up at the gates of Dvorsky’s Hope and responded “I’m shaking like a leaf.”

“You don’t have to do this, Shepard,” Coulter interrupted, another voice on another shoulder. “These guys are militarised. You can come back and get your guns.”

“Going in with guns is hardly a mission of peace,” she said. Besides, she had kept her pistol. She was a better shot with that anyway, and it looked simply like an accessory. Her cheeks stung with cold as the wind whipped past her. Relinquishing her helmet had been another strategic decision. She knew that she would have distrusted a fully armed soldier knocking on her door. “I’m fine.”

“I’ve got my eye on you,” Jane said, as level as ever.

“Yeah over six hundred metres,” Shep muttered as the settlement’s main gate dropped down like a drawbridge, revealing three soldiers bearing the European Union flag on their shoulders aiming their rifles at her.

“Shepard,” Coulter’s voice sounded in her ear again. “Once you step inside Jane will not be able to cover you with her sniper. You do not have to do this.”

Shepard raised her hand in greeting. “Hi there,” she said sunnily. “Take me to your leader.”

The soldiers glanced at each other and then back to her. “How old are you, kid?”

That was all she needed. She kept her smile and shrugged. “Alliance keeps us looking young, I guess.”

The soldiers looked at each other again, their brows arched, confused and amused by her, disarmed by her attitude. She would have sworn she could feel Jane’s gaze from the ridge, magnified by her scope. She hoped Coulter wouldn’t blame himself after the colonists slaughtered her.

_Alliance thinking. Colonists just want a new start. These are frightened people, hon, that’s all._   It was her father’s voice echoing in her head.

“Mikhail if you don’t step aside and let that young woman out of the cold you are going to have to rethink your role on this colony,” a woman’s voice snapped over the iced prefabs and soldiers lowered their weapons with a snap of magnetic grips. The woman who was exiting the largest prefab was bundled up in furs, like something from a picture book, with blonde hair tightly wound up in a bun atop her head. Crows feet lined her eyes and smile lines graced her lips, but no smile was forthcoming. She glared at the few colonists who were collecting around the gates. “We’ll not have someone standing on the porch.”

Shepard bowed her head. “Thanks,” she said, taking that as enough invite to brush past the soldiers. One stopped her with a heavy hand on her shoulder, removing her pistol from her hip before he released her.

“My name is Eva,” the woman said, extending a hand for her to shake.

“Shepard. Alliance Military,” she added.

“I can see that.” Eva stepped back to guide her toward the prefab. “I wonder why you’re here.”

Contrary to Shepard’s expectations, the prefab wasn’t a communal space but Eva’s home. Heavy wooden cabinets lined the walls, the wood black teak, Earth made, and undoubtedly hideously expensive to ship all the way out here. A young girl, no more than three, was sitting on a white fur rug in the middle of the living room, a model ship clutched in her hand. Shepard smiled at her. “I like your ship,” she said, coming to rest at the edge of the rug. She hesitated for a moment, instinct telling her to stand at ease and memory telling her Eva would think it odd. No one would have a house like this on Mindoir, with Earth antiques on every sideboard and a single child playing in silence. _What now, Dad?_

“My daughter, Ami,” Eva said, gesturing to the little girl. She disappeared into a second room, her voice floating back through. “Coffee?”

“Please.”

“Take a seat, I’ll be right out,” Eva said.

Ami was watching her, the ship halfway to her mouth. Shepard made a discouraging shake of her head as she sat. “Darling, don’t eat that,” she said without thinking.

_They’re people no matter where they’re from or what they way, you figure out their motives, you’ve got them sorted._

_The whole world’s a court room._

Eva re-emerged with two coffee mugs, steaming and aromatic. “So tell me why the Alliance has sent a lone Private to negotiate.”

She smirked as she took her cup. “I think you can guess that I’m not here officially.”

“Indeed,” Eva’s eyes were sparkling and she sat on the sofa opposite Shepard’s, her daughter crawling to her side. “I’m intrigued. Why are you here?”

Shepard was given a brief reprieve when the doors blew open and a young man stormed in, more suitable dressed in high-tech outerwear, his high, dark cheeks only a little ruddy. He gave Shepard a dirty glare as he came to a stop in front of Eva. “What’s she doing here?”

“I’m trying to find that out, Gale.”

Gale shot Shepard another glare and folded his arms, brushing ice crystals to the floor. “You’re selling out to the Alliance? After all we’ve done here?”

Eva sipped her coffee, watching Gale over the mug’s rim. Shepard found herself clearing her throat and shifting forward in her seat to catch Gale’s attention. “I’m not really here in an official capacity,” she said again. “Are you one of the colonists here?”

Gale rolled his eyes to the ceiling and muttered something under his breath. He turned to her with a long suffering sigh. “I assay finds, I’m a geologist. I’m the one who tells you what you’re sitting on, sweetheart.”

“I know exactly what I’m sitting on,” she retorted, sitting back and stretching her arms out across the back of the sofa.

Gale hesitated and Eva set her coffee mug down on the table with a soft clink of china, drawing his attention. “What did you come here to tell me, Gale?”

Gale drew in a breath. “The Chinese are moving.”

Eva’s eyes narrowed and she looked to Shepard. “I guess you’re here to tell me something similar?”

“Not exactly. I’m here to ask you _not_ to mobilise.”

Gale puffed up like a cat while Eva sat, poised like a doll, her daughter glancing up at them both with round eyes. “So when the People’s Republic come our way,” Eva began, speaking slowly, “you want us to remain in our homes and not mount a defence?”

“They’re partnered up,” Gale said quickly. “They want the platinum.”

“No,” Shepard sat forward so quick the sofa creaked. “Not at all. Well the Federation might but we don’t. The Alliance didn’t even know you were sitting on a platinum deposit, the Alliance is just here to keep peace. They’re going to hold the People’s Republic-”

“They’re going to try,” Eva said. She rubbed her thumb over her lips. “If they can’t, they’re going to come over here and we won’t have our defences up.”

Gale was watching Shepard with eyes that she noticed, in a shore-leave’s-coming-up way, that were very green. She focussed her attention on Eva, staring at her pale skin and blood red lips.

_What does she want, kid?_

_Platinum. A less creepy house. A better relationship with her daughter. Platinum. To win._

_Yeah, but why’s she here? She’s rich, she must have been rich back on Earth. Why a frozen backwater?_

_The platinum._

_Maybe._

Eva looked down at her daughter, brushing her hand over the golden hair.

_Wealth for the family, for the daughter, platinum for the daughter, I don’t know Dad, I’m not you! This is just a rock of ice with three countries trying to build new cities on, it’s nothing it’s just a –_

“Look I’m not here to tell you what to do,” Shepard said, “but I’m guessing you’re not here to keep replaying the same old stories from Earth. This planet? It’s just a rock of ice to the Alliance, but for you? It’s a fresh start. Let the Alliance honour Rekjavik. Let them keep the People’s Federation at bay. Let them protect you.”

“Worst comes to worst, they’ll at least tire the Chinese out,” Gale offered.

Eva’s gaze darted between them, settling at last on Gale. “How long do we need to claim the vein?”

With a half shrug, Gale lifted his arm and a glowing orange omnitool appeared with slick lines, hovering above his jacket. In-arm implants, not reliant on a gauntlet. Expensive gear, Shepard noted. “You need to sit on it for another local month before you can sell the rights to Rosenkov, provided everyone abides by Rekjavik. Open conflict would violate the Compromise.”

“But if the People’s Federation oust us from the claim, we have to restart our squatting time, right?”

“Or contest that they broke the Compromise but the Council tends to side with might,” Gale’s omnitool flickered off and he folded his arms. “If the Chinese get to us, we’re screwed, but if we fight, we’re just as screwed.”

“Look, I have some eyes on the ridge outside the camp. It wouldn’t be perfect, but I can get them to alert us to the Federation’s approach. You could prepare a bit, right?”

Eva smiled, her eyes remaining cold. “Make the call. We’ll see how it turns out.”

Without wasting a moment, Shepard was on her feet and moving towards the window, hand to ear. Coulter took little convincing, revealing that Daniels had already opened fire. “The fewer colonists we end up shooting, the better. We’ll be your eyes, Shepard.”

Gale had gravitated towards her while Eva made her preparations. “So, Alliance, huh?” he said.

“Does the uniform give it away?”

When he smiled, she had to admit some butterflies started fluttering in her stomach. She gave him her biggest smile in return. He glanced back at Eva then leaned closer. “Are you always stationed here or might I see you on Arcturus one time?”

 

***

**Earth Date: 30/12/2174**

**Arcturus Station**

 

“Commander Anderson will see you now,” the diminutive yeoman announced. Shepard leapt to her feet, tugging once again at her dress blues. The yeoman was failing to suppress his amusement as he showed Shepard towards the commander’s office. “He doesn’t bite, I promise.”

“Yeah, but why does he want to see me?” she muttered, biting the corner of her lip as she was shown into a dark office. There were few photographs or trinkets decorating the shelves, only the stars outside Arcturus twinkled beyond the windows. Commander Anderson was sitting at his desk, reports scattered around him and a screen casting soft orange light onto his face. “Sir!” she snapped to attention.

“Private Shepard, or Corporal Shepard, I should say.” Anderson rose to his feet to greet her.

“Uh,” she hesitated long enough for Anderson to circle his desk an approach her. He had a good head on her in height, a considerable advantage in muscle too. When he came to rest in front of her she noticed he was giving her the same scrutiny. “I haven’t actually been promoted yet. End of the week.”

This made him smile. “A stickler for details, then?”

Unsure how to reply, she decided discretion was the better part of valour.

“Your actions on Watson probably saved some lives,” Anderson said. He frowned intently at her. “You disagree?”

“No, sir,” she said quickly.

“You are allowed to disagree with me, Corporal,” he pointed out gently.

“I . . .” she swallowed and glanced out at the stars. “A lot of people have congratulated me, but I just asked Eva to do what she had promised to do by the Rekjavik Compromise. It was Eva who did the right thing. Not me.”

Anderson nodded. “You reminded her of her duties.”

Turning her gaze back to Anderson, she found herself sniffing back tears. “But a lot of colonists still died. Military, sure, but they were just doing what they thought was right. And my squad,” she cut herself off, her throat closing.

“Lieutenant Daniels is being dealt with,” Anderson said. There was no softness to this, no shame. Daniels was a problem that was already solved. “I can promise you that the Alliance will be sending someone more appropriate to Watson.” He turned back to his desk, whether to give her privacy to pull herself together or simply because he had taken his measure of her she wasn’t sure. “I understand from the reports of others in your squad that you weren’t always treated fairly by Daniels.”

“I wouldn’t say that, sir.”

“Just because you won’t say it doesn’t mean it’s not true.” Anderson took a seat again and he flashed her the barest hint of a smile. She was unreasonably cheered by it. “You’ve got the makings of a good soldier, Shepard. You can think on your feet, you can take initiative, and you don’t need a gun to make your point. I’d hate to see the Alliance lose you because of one bad lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s why I’m putting in a request for you to be transferred to the _SSV Hastings_. She’s providing rapid response to ships hit by mercenaries and her Captain’s been asking for a decent biotic to help with all those asari maidens they keep running into. What do you say, Corporal?”

She grinned. “Yes, sir.” 


	8. The Right Person

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even the lowliest grunts get shore leave, on beautiful planets, with regular sunsets. And Shepard is not the lowliest grunt.

The Right Person

Earth Date: 12/05/2176

Elysium, the Vetus System

 

“I can’t believe you’re only going to be here for two days.”

Gale chuckled.

“That is the most infuriating sound you could be making right now.” Shepard lifted her head from the pillows and supported her weight on her elbows. “What is that? Are you _happy_ you’re not going to be around for my shore leave?”

Her rangy lover loped out from the bathroom and flicked damp hands in her direction. He approached the bed, buck naked, hands on hips. Little trickles of water gathered on the hollows. He leaned down, his black curls mussed and sticking to his scalp with sweat. “I’m happy I’m not going to have to listen to you moan about it for the next two weeks.”

“Oh that’s funny, that’s really funny, that’s two weeks you won’t be getting – mmph-” Gale kissed like no other man she’d been with. Not that in her twenty two years she felt like she was sampling enough to find out. She knew Jane had a metaphorical black book, instead of a black post-note, and in any discussions between friends she couldn’t help but feel out of touch. Mike was locked away inside her skull, teenage fumbles in the hay were still shadowed by everything Mindoir had become. Shawn had been a brutal, unfriendly continuation into that part of her life, undistinguishable from the rest of her cold birth into adulthood. Gale was undeniably warm, with slender shoulders and long muscles wrapped around his tall frame, and unlike everyone else she’d been with. His chest he kept waxed smooth, his hair perfectly styled at all times to look as though he had rolled out of bed. She’d never seen him anything less than immaculate, even when coming out of a mine. Sometimes she wondered what he saw in her. Even her most charitable squad leaders despaired of her ability to square a locker away and her idea of dressing up involved a swipe of mascara and a nicer shirt.

His hand lifted to play with hair at the nape of her neck and he parted from her with a small ‘hmm’ of pleasure. “I do love shutting you up.” When she grimaced he tugged at her dark hair. “You cut it?”

“Yes.” She ran her own hand through it. The short cut wasn’t as practical as she’d been hoping for. It still felt hot inside her helmet and now demanded a brush through it in the mornings instead of simply being twisted up in a bun. What’s more, it no longer truly hid her biotic implant. She wondered if, after over a year on the _Hastings_ , showing off her implant hadn’t been part of the decision.

“I like it,” Gale purred, climbing into the bed beside her. “It’s cute.”

“Not exactly what I was going for,” she said, rolling him onto his back and straddling him. This, too, was new. Shawn hadn’t been one to let her take control. Even when he’d had her on top, it was still at his pace and for his pleasure. Gale clasped his hands behind his head and let her run her fingers down his chest, grunt low in his throat when she slid home, his lips parting. “I’m not ‘cute’,” she said, teasing him with a long, slow roll of her hips.

Gale laughed, breathlessly, and agreed to disagree.

After, loosely coiled over one another with a sheet pulled up over their waist to keep them warm, Shepard felt her irritation building once more. Her heart was unwound here, in bed, with Gale’s arm around her body and his heat underneath her. The scales fell away, armour plating weakened by the pulse of happiness that threaded between them. She wanted to whisper honesties in his ear, to tell him how she loved these moments wrapped together. She wanted to ask him about his family, wanted to be asked about hers. She wanted to read aloud the letter she’d received from Dr Shaw-Williams and feel something . . .

Gale shifted, lifting his arm to arrange the pillow under his head. When he settled it back around her, his hand cupped the swell of her bottom and he kissed the top of her head. “You know we’d have more time together if you weren’t always running off to save the noble merchant.”

“Hmm.” She traced her fingers along the line of his breast, nail tracing the hardened nipple. “And if you weren’t always called away to dig sites.”

“Money talks.” Gale was silent a moment before he continued, his voice pitched high and casual. “You know my boss is always looking to recruit Alliance soldiers. Says they make the best security.”

“Be a merc?” Lifting her head from his chest, she peered into his green eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“Private security, technically, and why not? Pay’s better. Benefits are a hell of a lot better. You would have more time, more time to develop relationships.”

“Oh I thought we weren’t in a relationship, weren’t those your exact words?” She pushed off of the bed and paced the floor, with no direction in mind.

“They were.” With her gone, Gale pulled the sheets up and sat higher up on the pillows. “This isn’t a relationship, Shepard, don’t go getting ideas like that.”

She dragged her hand through her hair, snagging her fingers on an errant knot.

Gale leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’m not saying that I wouldn’t want a relationship with you, but that’s not what this is. We need to be honest about that. _You_ need to be honest about that. I’m not going to be the one to put you back together again.”

“I don’t need someone to put me back together,” she spat, folding her arms under her breasts and making Gale’s lips part with desire. She smirked, squeezing her arms a little closer together and Gale’s mouth shut with a wet smack.

He chuckled. “Yeah, you do, Shepard. But in my experience, it’s better that it doesn’t happen with someone you’re fucking. It hurts to be repaired.”

“Like you’d know?” she demanded, shifting warily when he climbed from the bed. But Gale didn’t head for her, instead he returned to the bathroom. The sounds of running water answered her. Shepard leaned back against the wall, surveying their meticulous room and the neatly folded clothes Gale had left on the chair. When Gale reappeared she looped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Well we have a lot to do in two days.”

 

***

_**14/05/2176** _

_Received 02/04/2176_

_Dear Corporal Shepard,_

_We regret to inform you that the remains of Catherine Mary Shepard have been recovered and identified by the Mindoir Recovery Project._

_We will hold the remains for a period of five years, before interring them on Mindoir as part of the Recovery Project, unless you contact us with alternative arrangements._

_Sincerely,_

_Dr Elizabeth Shaw-Williams_

_Chief SoCO_

_Recovery Project_

 

The sun was beginning to peak over Illyria’s tall office blocks, casting long shadows over the square that meant she kept her soft jacket on as she broke her fast on some good, old fashioned, terran pancakes.

‘We regret to inform you’. It was a curious choice of words. The alternative did not bear thinking about, Cathy as a batarian slave, working under threat of death for those monsters. And yet she couldn’t wish for another of these letters from the MRP. There were two left, her mother and Dot, and she could not wish them dead, nor wish them alive.

Gale had left before the dawn broke. Over the last two days they had enjoyed one another, enjoyed Illyria’s night life and enjoyed a few more arguments about her career in the Alliance. He’d pulled out a few more weapons in his arsenal, called her a romantic for believing in the Alliance, showed her how much she could make just from selling the locations of mineral deposits. It was nothing like mining the find yourself, but companies like the one he worked for paid well for the information. A little more money in her account couldn’t hurt.

She was not a romantic. Romantics didn’t dig up weeks old letters from the MRP and wonder what should be done with the remains of the family. She was not a romantic. Not in the least.

Her omnitool beeped at her and she flicked away from the message to her inbox. The sender’s address made her smile.

 

_Hey Shepard,_

_Gale’s an asshole. Anyone who can’t book a couple of weeks holiday to spend with you isn’t worth your time worrying about. As I’ve said from the start. I could set you up with the most adorable little puppy from my squad. Toombs would never treat his woman like that, though he might slobber on you a bit. I don’t know if you’re into that shit._

_I miss you. I don’t miss Watson or that old squad, but I do miss you. I can’t wait to see you next week. Remind me to tell you what these crazy colonists have been up to. Doesn’t make sense to me that you’re up there while I’m down on a rock kowtowing to the locals._

_You just spend this week relaxing on the beaches or whatever they’ve got on Elysium. Scout out some good bars for us and I’ll see you soon,_

_Jane xx_

 

Stabbing her fork through a pancake stack, Shepard set about composing her reply. When the sun finally reached her in the square she was feeling warm enough to loop her jacket over her arm as she set off to prowl Illyria’s shops.

 

***

**Earth Date 19/05/2176**

 

“Shepard?”

Grissom’s chosen retirement world did have a sun which set at a reasonable time, but that only enticed the young folk out to play. Jane’s request for scouting had been taken to heart and Shepard wasn’t sure when she’d last enjoyed a planet’s recreation district so thoroughly.

“Shepard!”

She grunted, batting away the insistent hand and burying her face in the pillow.

“Shepard something’s happening out there, the lights are out,” the woman’s voice continued, the hand returning to her shoulder. “Shepard, I’m scared!”

Grit stung in her eyes, her head thumped and her lips felt cracked and sore. All the same, she sat upright and peered at the dark face of the asari who’d been trying to wake her. “What?” she asked with a heavy tongue. Even as she asked, she could see what had spooked Imia outside of the windows. Illyria was darker than usual, only emergency lighting cast the streets in an orange haze and defined the buildings. The hospital glowed in the distance, as did the security centre, but all else, even the neon strips of the bars, were in shadow.

Imia followed her to the glass, clasping her hands together and raising her fingers to her lips. “Power cut?”

Imia’s apartment was littered with empty cans of beer and packets of snacks. Only the emergency lighting, thin recessed panels in the wall, gave off any light at all. The guests who’d survived Imia’s afterparty were still sleeping, except for one man who was reading something off his omnitool. “I can’t get any satellite uplink,” he said in a quiet voice. “Why is that? The power’s hit the communication relays too?”

Her gut turned and ached. She rubbed her stomach through the fabric of her shirt and stared back out at the city.

“I’ve never seen this happen before,” Imia said firmly. “Not in eighty years.”

“Eighty years,” Dylan muttered, shaking his head as he heaved himself to his feet. He approached the window and put his arms around Imia’s waist, pulling her close for a kiss on the cheek. “You asari.”

“I have seen this before . . .” Shepard murmured. Her stomach turned once more, a sensation she had gotten used to, a mass effect field working on a large object. Normally she wouldn’t even notice. “You can’t connect to a local comms tower?” she asked Dylan, craning her neck to see Elysium’s stars.

“Nope, nothing,” Dylan said.

She jerked away from the window, jumping the coffee table and grabbing her zipper from the sofa she’d been sleeping on. “Keep trying the comms and keep inside,” she told them, zipping the grey hoodie up close.

“Where are you going?” Imia called after her.

“Just keep the doors locked and everyone inside,” she called back as she escaped into the hallway. The darkness was disorientating, the emergency lighting only a dull red smear on the floor. She took the stairs three at a time, trying her omnitool as she fled to street level. Another mass effect engine swooped down nearby. On Elysium, those feelings were so common, ships landed so often that she’d learned to tune out that sensation, like she had learned to tune out the sensation of boots on her feet or a shirt on her back.

On this part of Illyria the streets were paved, long swathes of grass separating the walkways and thoroughfares. This street was lined by four residential blocks, two on each side, before the blonde paving stones fanned out to lead into a shopping district. It was on this entrance that a small ship had landed and a squad of batarians were exiting. She flung herself to the grass and crouched behind a large planter, resisting the urge to scream ‘how can the same shit happen to the same person twice?’ at the stars.

“Start with the south blocks,” one of the batarians was saying. He was an ugly bastard, his top pair of eyes scarred shut. “Stun and collar for pickup.”

No backup. She’d told Dylan to stay inside. Worse, she’d told Imia to stay inside, Imia who could probably have slammed a few of those idiots into a wall with her biotics. The batarians weren’t shielded, yet, but they possessed some large, illegal weapons and there were far more of them than there were of her. Two of the largest turned in the direction of Imia’s block, seeing, at the same time Shepard did, the pair of security guards emerging from the underpass.

Before the guards had time to think or the batarians time to utter more than a hiss of warning to their squad, she moved, summoning the dark energy from the well inside her, letting it coalesce around the feet of the batarians and jerking them upwards for a moment. It was seconds, but seconds was enough to let the security guards reach their guns, enough to startle the other pirates into looking for her and enough for her to run.

Gunfire erupted behind her, kicking up clods of dirt as she sprinted over the grass. She cast a hand in general direction of the pirates, flinging undirected energy at them. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she might have knocked one of them down but now she had reached the entrance to another underpass and she was sheltered from the spray of bullets once more. Flattening her body against the wall she sucked in a deep breath, holding her mind together as she searched for the next mnemonic. When three batarians followed her path over the drop, they landed in a singularity of her own creation. The surprise on their face as they began to twist in mid-air was almost comical.

The kind of field they called a singularity was uniquely unstable, a careful mix of push and pull created out of nothing. In the lab, disruption of a singularity field had caused some damage and when she wasn’t on the _Hastings_ , she often to be found discussing the ramifications of these fields in battle situations.

This was not an evening for discussions. She pushed a warping field into the centre of the singularity and was blown backwards by the wash of a mass effect field imploding. A batarian’s arm sailed over her head, still clutching a shotgun.

“Hey!” one of the security guards hailed her from the shuttle, raising his hand. He was splattered with blood and his eyes were wide, but he and his colleague seemed mostly unharmed. “What the hell’s happening?” he demanded of her. “How did you do that?”

Lifting the dead pirates’ guns, she jogged back towards them. “Corporal Shepard, Alliance military!” she answered. “We’re under attack. Get word to these buildings, distribute the guns. Barricade the entrances and get word to as many people as you can.”

“Attack?” whispered the second security guard, patting a bloody nose with his sleeve. “Why?”

“Not important. Prepare these people. Barricades and guns, you hear me?” she dropped the weapons at their feet, selecting a light submachine gun to take with her. “I’m going to secure the comms towers. If you have anyone spare, I could really use their help. They always take the comms towers first!” she hollered over her shoulder as she sprinted down the street.

Feet pounding the streets, she pelted up the long, slow rise towards the comms towers. A long stitch burned up her ribs, aching a little more with every stride. This would be the last damned time she ever left the house without a power bar in her pocket. In her mind’s eye, the dark streets were overlaid by the glitter of mass effect fields, setting up choke points at street entrances, plenty of heavy planters waiting for her to lurk behind.

This planet was defensible. This planet could be –

“HELP!”

The shriek stopped her as effectively as a wall. She aimed her sights down the alley in time to catch sight of a pirate backhanding a woman across the face. The woman’s companions strained against their captors while the woman fell to the ground in her short dress. What Shepard wouldn’t give for Jane at her side, instead of days away in space. Jane could have targeted the pirates even with an SMG and not risked hitting the civilians. So once more she pulled at the eddies of gravity that surrounded her and reshaped it as she desired. The shrieks of the homeward bound party-goers was only mixed by the surprised cries of the pirates.

Shepard darted forwards, grabbing the ankle of one pirate and jerking him out of the air, chasing his body with bullets. The second two she tossed far into the air with a throw-

“Look out!”

\- only to smack straight into a fist. She reeled backwards, stars exploding in her vision. Only the inarticulate cry of one of the partiers gave her warning enough to duck the follow up blow. She slammed her shoulders forward, catching the pirate in the gut. She infused her fist with a little extra gravity and drove it into the pirate’s jaw, hearing the satisfying crunch of bone.

“Everyone okay?” She jerked her head up, scanning the alleyway for anyone else. The partygoers were picking themselves up from the floor, some of them struggling with the shock collars that had been applied already. “Careful with those,” Shepard warned, turning back to the pirate sprawled on the floor. “You.” She knelt on his chest, earning an anguished scream. “Oh, hey, hey,” she purred at the batarian. “Does that hurt? Did I hurt you?” She increased her weight with the deft application of another field, sinking on the batarian’s ribs. “Tell you what. Give me the code for those collars and I might let you live.”

“You should just kill me,” the batarian spat at her, making her dodge phlegm.

“Uh, I can get these collars off,” one of the men said, his omnitool already activated. “I saw the frequency he used.”

“Good. Stick one on him. If he moves, blow his head off.” She hopped from the batarian and eyed the gun. Its cooldown time was not good.

“Thank you,” whispered the woman the pirate had struck. She had a swollen lip and the beginnings of a black eye, but she was smiling.

“No problem. There’s going to be more of them. Take their guns, find an asari if you can and somewhere to secure yourselves.” Shepard rifled through one of the dead pirate’s pockets. “Does anyone have a power bar or something?”

“I have some hydration salts,” one of the collared partiers said. Off his companion’s look, he shrugged. “Helps with the hangover.”

“I’ll take it, thanks,” she said, extending her hand.

“Who are you?” asked the tech, removing the last collar from his friend and clasping it over the batarian’s neck instead. He eyed her. “You want me to kill him?”

“ _If_ he moves,” she said. “The Alliance will want to take him to the Council for judgement.” She could feel something pulsing deep in her chest but refused to inspect the feeling too closely. “Criminals should face their crimes in a court of law,” she murmured.

“If you say so,” the tech muttered, closing the collar and bringing up his omnitool.

She clasped a hand over his shoulder. “I do. I’m Shepard. I’m Alliance. Trust me. We need at least one of the bastards kept to answer for his crimes.”

A shuttle roared overhead, its engines burning ozone. “Is that more of them?” the tech whispered.

Nodding, Shepard withdrew her hand, returning it to her gun. “The phrase of the day is ‘bunker down’, you hear me? Get safe. Get protected. They don’t expect resistance.”

“What about you?” he called after her.

“I’m Alliance,” she reached the street once more and paused, looking back to them. “This is what we do.”

Slurping down the hydration salts, she moved slower, keeping to the walls. She stopped by three more groups, one already mid-rescue by a troop of security guards. To each she said the same, hole up, stay safe, keep checking the comms. A small troop began to follow her, a security guard named Col and two off duty Alliance soldiers, Matt and Tai, both startled, grey faced men who had been caught with their pants down and apologised to her for not having weapons on them. “Neither did I,” she assured them, clapping a hand on the shoulder of a man who was at least five years older than she was. “We make do with what we scavenge.” Her last companion was a young girl who insisted she was eighteen but didn’t look a day over sixteen. She earned Shepard’s trust when she overclocked a turian pirate’s shields and sent him reeling backwards, giving Shepard enough time to let her SMG cool down and pump him full of mass accelerated slugs.

It didn’t escape Shepard as they continued towards the comm towers that it was the young girl, Esme, who seemed the least shaken by what was raining down on Elysium. While the adults shook and checked their guns over and over, she darted across every intersection with her gaze fixed upon their destination, calmly feeding them information about her home city.

And why not? Shepard herself had been sixteen when pirates fell upon her home. _What if we’d had Alliance on our doorstep? What if there had been a soldier holidaying on Mindoir? What if I’d known then what I know now?_

But Elysium was not Mindoir. It was not a backwater colony, Elysium’s people had not rejected industrial support. And this was not a few batarian ships raiding an unprepared colony . . .

The comms tower relay reared up on the top of a small hill, in one of Illyria’s many green parks. Shepard stopped her group on the tree line, crouching in the dirt as she stared up the hill. “They take the comms towers first,” she murmured to herself, searching for some confirmation she was right.

“I don’t see anything,” her security guard said, straightening up.

“Stay down,” hissed Tai, grabbing Col by the back of the pants and tugging him down as the dirt beside him exploded in a small puff.

Shepard flung herself belly to the ground, wriggling closer to the bush as Matt cried out “Sniper!”

“You see him?” she grunted, pushing Esme further into the foliage.

“Uh . . .” Matt lifted his head over the bluff and another explosion of dirt spattered his face with mud and bits of leaves. “He’s on the far right corner of the tower, probably repositioning now to get a better shot at us.”

Which gave them seconds. Jane could have taken their heads off already, but even she would need a moment to line up a new shot. Shepard began counting her heartbeats. “Any more? Any under the tower?”

“Not that I saw.”

“Give me covering fire if you can,” she hissed, pushing to her feet.

“Wait- Shepard!” Col almost moved to grab her, put off only by the sudden flare of purple around her body. She didn’t stop to consider their surprise, only praying she’d studied the specifications of this particular field enough. In theory, the barrier field should survive one, maybe even two direct sniper hits, but it had never been her forte. Matriarch Calline insisted that a barrier could replace shielding, sparing omnitool processing power for amp-related tasks, but none of the Alliance’s biotic specialists had been convinced so far. Shepard liked the hum of a shield generator attached to her armour, felt unbearably naked as she charged up the hill with only her civvies on.

The first slug missed. She continued zig-zagging up the hill, her heart offering a staccato estimate of when the next sniper report would ring out. The second shot did not miss, zinging through her weak barrier and knocking her sideways. She heard the roar of her companions behind her and kept running. _Don’t aim at them don’t aim at them don’t aim at them._

She reached the bottom of the tower and twisted to see what her makeshift band of warriors were doing, only to feel something heavy crack across the back of her skull. The barrier gave at last and she fell to her knees, her vision swimming, her ears ringing with the echoing cry of a turian. The next blow would kill her.

Esme would be taken. Taken to an unknown fate, like another clever little girl who had once been in her life . . .

When the next blow came, it landed against her raised arm, cracking bone. She twisted at the same time, her scream of pain mingling with rage as she drove her good hand forward, collecting gravity in her palm, pushing it out against her assailant and slamming him to the wall of the elevator. Another warp destabilised the field and killed the turian and she fell back to her knees, clutching her broken arm to her belly.

“Shepard!” Esme shrieked.

“I’m okay,” she called out.

“The sniper’s moving,” Matt called out. “Looks like he’s going into the main tower cell.”

She dragged herself into the elevator, smearing a bloody palm against the control panel. Pain radiated through her joints. Whatever that turian had hit her with it had been strong. The elevator started to rise, giving her a better view of their surroundings, of the ships falling on Illyria, of the city’s lack of lights. She let the SMG hang from her neck, drawing in a deep breath as the doors opened.

The comm tower’s main cell was nothing more than a small room perched beneath the main relay dish. It was sheltered from the elements, but was only intended as a place for carrying out repairs and software patches. The batarian was waiting, crouched behind a panel that jutted outwards, the only cover in the room.

“See if that will save you,” she spat, jerking her good hand upwards, pulling the batarian out from behind his cover. He cried out in surprise, circling the ceiling, suspended in her field. She detonated it, snapping the batarian’s spine. Step by step, she walked to the window and waved the others up, scanning the control panel below her.

“Oh God, Shepard!” Tai was first out the elevator, the others hesitating inside its walls.

For the first time, she let herself look down at the mess she was making. Blood was dripping onto the corrugated steel from the open gash on her upper arm. Bone protruded in white fragments from the red flesh.

“Col, in there,” Tai pointed to a cabinet in the wall while Shepard slumped against the panels. She smiled at Esme, still lingering in the elevator. “See if there’s medigel. Shepard, you okay?”

“Fine,” she murmured. “I could really use a powerbar. Esme can you get comms back up for us?”

At this, Esme nodded, tearing her gaze from Shepard’s injuries and hurrying to the panels. She began working while Tai and Matt crouched beside Shepard. Matt held her down while Tai repositioned her arm, making her shriek despite herself, and then the poured the white hot medigel over the wound.

It froze over her injuries, sealing the bone fragments and flesh together, immobilising the limb and sending spears of sweet, blessed anaesthetic into her nerves.

“That’s better,” Tai murmured as she leaned her head back against the panel. “You don’t look quite so pale.”

“Food,” she said, accepting Matt’s hand to her feet.

Col turned away from the supplies cabinet and shook his head. “Sorry. That sachet of medigel was all they had.”

“I got it!” Esme bounced on the balls of her feet, the panel before her lighting up green.

“Got what? Is there Alliance out there?” Tai demanded, pushing in beside her and staring down at the lights. “Should we contact them?”

“Yes,” Shepard said. “Can we send out a message on a wide frequency band?”

The young girl grinned at her, cheeks rosy with success. She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear and planted her hands on her hips. “Better than that. The pirates have used a basic system override that means they control all communications on the planet, but they’ve got it running from of the relays, bypassing central comms controls. I can get you on all the channels, all over the planet, just from here!”

“What?” Tai whispered, while Matt shrugged.

“Do it,” Shepard reached for the mic, watching for Esme’s nod. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Corporal Shepard, Alliance Military, calling all vessels in the area. Elysium is under attack, I repeat, Elysium is under attack. Mayday, mayday, mayday,” her voice cracked, _Mayday Mayday Mayday this is the human colony Mindoir signalling all ships in the area, we are under attack, heavy attack, batarians are_  – that had been Kimmy’s cry, years ago. “Calling all vessels in the area, we are under attack”

“Corporal Shepard?” the speakers hissed at her.

A cheer went around their little group. She glanced up, pointing to the windows. “Keep watch,” she ordered. “Don’t let anyone sneak up on us.”

Immediately chastened, the others slunk off, each taking a side of windows, watching for the pirates.

“Speaking,” she said into the mic.

“Corporal Shepard, this is the SSV _Agincourt_ , we are approaching Elysium now. You’ve definitely got yourselves a roach problem.”

“ _Agincourt_ ,” she murmured, her gaze reflexively checking the ceiling. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“Well we’ll make sure none of them get away, don’t worry,” the voice told her. She heard the crackle of other voices on the ship, too faint to be made out properly. “I’m Lieutenant Ondin, I will be you operator this evening. Corporal, we need to know the status on the ground?”

Sagging against the panel, Shepard could feel herself beginning to shake. “There are lots of attacks down here. I’m based in Illyria, main population centre. We’ve been instructing civilians to hole up?”

“Good call, Corporal. Be aware we are moving into range.” Ondin’s voice crackled as the speakers began broadcasting another message – “Unidentified vessels, cease all activities around Elysium. This is the Alliance vessel, SSV _Agincourt_. We will begin firing on any vessels attempting to land on Elysium or leave this system. This has been your one warning.”

Shepard smiled. “My guardian angel,” she told the lieutenant.

“Not a problem, Corporal.”

“Hey look!” Esme called from her window. She pointed towards the eastern horizon and the glow of orange that framed the buildings. “It’s dawn!”

Shepard left the panel, limping to Esme’s side, staring out at the rising sun. She turned back to the panel, clasping her hand around the mic. “Ondin?”

“I’m here, Corporal.”

“I’m going to leave you in the capable hands of Esme, she’s an Elysium native, she’s going to take good care of you.” She unslung the SMG from around her neck, shooting Esme a smile. She thought she could hear conferring between Ondin and her superiors.

“Where are you going, Corporal?” Ondin’s tone was artificially light.

“To reinforce the civilians, ma’am.”

“Corporal . . . we’d like you to stay in contact.”

She grinned. “Can’t do that, ma’am. Sun’s coming up. Time to get to work.”

 

***

**_Earth Date: 21/05/2176_ ** _, SSV Agincourt, Alliance Blockade Orbiting Elysium_

The light footsteps walking into the _Agincourt’s_ med bay made her sit up in her bed with a wide grin on her face. “Look who finally shows up to the party,” she drawled, while Jane rolled her eyes. Jane was still suited up in armour, red hair scraped back with sweat and grime. “Hope the party wasn’t all cleared up down there,” Shepard teased, wincing as her arm moved in its cast. The VI chirruped at her to remain as still as possible to facilitate the bone knitting.

“Well someone has to clean up your fun.” Jane perched on the end of her bed, reaching for the glass of water on the side table. “May I?”

“Go ahead. I’ve been electrolytes and drips and who knows what else. They’re interested in how my muscles responded to the prolonged biotic usage. I’ve completely lost my appetite.”

Jane raised her eyebrows.

“Okay, well the roast chicken might have helped.” She grimaced, leaning back against her pillows. “This damned arm itches like hell.”

“I’ve heard those quick repairs aren’t fun,” Jane said, picking over the remains of Shepard’s last meal. “They’re all talking about you down there,” she continued, fixing Shepard with green eyes.

“Really?”

“Half the planet saw you on llyria that morning. The other half heard your broadcasts.” Jane took a deep breath, straightening her spine and popping vertebra in a way that made Shepard’s own back ache with want. She shifted again in her bed. The doctors assured her she would be on her feet by the end of the day. Her arm would be ready for PT within the week. It seemed too long. Jane hopped back off the bed, looking back at her. “This is gonna change you, Shepard. You don’t just walk away from things like this.”

“Tell me about it,” she joked. “They replaced my right arm socket with titanium.”

Jane only shook her head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

 

***

**Earth Date: 01/06/2176, Arcturus Station**

The famous Steven Hackett should have looked every bit as intimidating as he did in images and vids. His steely blue eyes fixed Shepard over the desk, the grey beard and tightly shorn snowy hair only served to accentuate the long scar that ran over the right hand side of his face, up to his scalp and grazing the tip of his ear. His office was not like Anderson’s. It was bright, with a few little trinkets on his desk, including a burned hunk of metal that Shepard was sure was a piece of hull plating.

She liked him instantly. He felt like home.

He waited for her to sit in front of him, letting her take the time to arrange her cumbersome arm cast. “We’re going to award you the Star of Terra for your actions on Elysium,” he announced, bluntly, sitting back in his chair to watch how she took this news. “You’ll never buy another beer on that planet again.”

She tried not to squirm. “I just did my job, sir.”

At that, Hackett smiled, his scar stretching. “Is that all, Corporal? You make the rest of us slackers.”

“No, sir.” Now she was squirming, her skin crawling on the inside. Steven Hackett was laughing at her. Silently, inwardly, but all the same, he found her laughable.

“You’re one of Anderson’s special projects, you know,” he added. “Your posting on the _Hastings_. Are you enjoying it? Captain Farrelly speaks very highly of your combat ability. He says he’s not at all surprised you’re getting a medal.”

“I’m not sure what you expect me to say, sir,” she murmured. “I can use biotic fields. That’s all.”

“It wasn’t biotic fields which held those pirates back from Elysium, Shepard,” he said softly. “You might be one of Anderson’s projects. You might be Farrelly’s best soldier. You might even be the so-called Hero of the Blitz. But if you can’t see why, you’re no good to me.” Hackett was studying her intently, her every twitch catalogued by those grey eyes.

The protestations died on the tip of her tongue and she found herself staring right back, modesty aside, she was just a soldier. Like any other. Like Matt and Tai, floundering in the attack until she had rallied them.

“I hear you’ve been offered contract work. By some mining corporations.” Hackett was checking his terminal now. Absently, he curled a hand around his cup and raised it to his lips, wincing when he tasted it.

“I have,” she said. She could safely admit that at least. “My . . .” She couldn’t use the word ‘boyfriend’ in front of this man, and yet she felt as if she said ‘partner’ he would raise his eyebrows in polite disbelief that she was capable of such sophistication. “My friend works with a mining company. They sent me an offer right after the Blitz hit the news.”

The corner of Hackett’s mouth seemed to be trying to smile. “A competitive offer, I don’t doubt.”

“The money was impressive,” she conceded. In front of Hackett, in his bright, clean office with its hunk of hull plating in pride of place on the desk, she was able to say what she wasn’t able to write in reply to Gale. “But I know what it’s like to have no protection. The reason I fought on Elysium was because I couldn’t let that happen again.”

At this, Hackett turned his full attention back to her, piercing gaze staring at her. He lifted his cup. “My coffee is cold. Can I interest you in a cup?”

She nodded, remaining seated but at a considerable lack of ease. Hackett moved with long limbed grace, retrieving a mug from a side cabinet and rinsing his own into a small sink fitted on the counter. This spacious office was sleek, worklike, and well lived in. Shepard drew in a breath. “If this is a test sir, I think I’m failing.”

“Anderson wants to enrol you in the N7 program.” Hackett was pouring coffee from a silver pot. He twisted to look back at her. “Sugar? Cream?”

Mutely, she shook her head, still processing the first sentence. Hackett carried the cup back to her, pressing it into her good hand “Does that mean you don’t want me in the N7 program?” she blurted, staring up at him.

“No.” He  took his seat back behind the desk. He softened the word with a followup. “Not yet. You need confidence, you need self-reliance. I don’t think you have it yet.”

“Yet?” she leaned forward, resting the base of her cup on her knees. “You think one day I will?”

Those blue eyes glittered with amusement. “Yes. I think one day you might be capable of N7 school. You’re not what I expected. When they told me one soldier had rallied the civilians on Elysium, I didn’t think it would be a colonist, from Mindoir of all places. I wasn’t expecting someone who openly used biotics could rally a group of civilians. And I wasn’t expecting someone who wouldn’t look out of place on a recruitment poster.” That last was said with a wry quirk to the corner of his mouth.

“Sorry to disappoint” she said tightly.

“You haven’t, Corporal,” Hackett said softly. He waited for her to look in his eyes. “You deserve your medal for this, Shepard. But everyone expects me to promote you.  I’d like to send you to officer training school instead. I’d like you to hone those skills of yours. Then, when I’ve gotten all the use out of a young officer I can get, you’ll be ready for N7 training. And I think you will be something very dangerous indeed.” Hackett sipped his coffee while she digested this. “Anderson always has his special projects. I don’t.”

She wasn’t too modest to hear the compliment in that. Relaxing back in her chair, she raised her own cup to her lips. The coffee was good, rich and aromatic. There’d be plenty of coffee in officer training, she guessed. Coffee and reports and desks. But . . . she’d be in control, eventually. She would be an officer too. And N7 school waiting beyond. What she could do with that letter and number.  “I would like to go to officer training school, sir.”

Hackett’s gaze was triumphant. “Excellent. Your first posting then is a secondment to Eris K’Ordae’s Commando squad. Asari High Command have been keen to see our biotics in action and the Council loves inter-species cooperation. Officially, you are there to show face and you will be compiling a report for your first assignment. Unofficially, K’Ordae’s squad is assisting us in Operation Burnt Skies.”

Shepard could feel the grin spreading on her face.

“Operation Burnt Skies is an Alliance Initiative to push the batarians out of Citadel space. Since they no longer occupy their embassy,” and now Hackett was grinning, small and triumphant, “the Council is not obligated to take a side.”

“So they don’t even have to endorse us,” she felt as though her face might split. “I can do this,” she affirmed.

“You will assimilate entirely into the Commando Squad, their culture, their food. And should something happen, the Alliance will deny all knowledge of your being authorised to see frontline action.”

“I understand, sir,” she said quickly. “But we’ll be fighting pirates.”

“Keeping people safe,” he agreed. “Good luck, Shepard.”


	9. In Another's Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You cannot know until you have walked two moons in another's moccasins. There are more things than batarians to be afraid of in the Verge.

**Illium**

**Earth Date: 07/07/2176**

Aulle slapped her hands together, rubbing cream into the calluses as she joined her comrades on the bench. “I hear she’s twelve years old.”

“That’s obscene,” Tani retorted. She had her eyes closed, her head tilted back against the wall, her legs crossed. Her foot bounced occasionally, the only sign of life.

“Well she’s a human,” Yasse said in return. “They grow up quick.”

“Not salarian quick,” Tani muttered. “They’re more like turians.”

“A turian wouldn’t send a twelve year old,” Aulle said, a smug smile on her face as she said this.

“Maybe you got it wrong,” Tani said.

The conversation lulled and their shuttle shook as it exited the atmosphere. The cockpit door opened and the huntresses turned to their Commander and the improbably young human who accompanied her. Tani even opened her eyes, a crack, and found herself staring at the small, slight little human who followed their Commander. Her first thought was that this human was not twelve years old. Tani knew a maiden when she saw one and this girl was on the cusp of adulthood, no blushing ingénue, no shy flicker of her eyes. She met each asari’s gaze calmly.

“Shepard, Everyone” Commander K’Ordae waved blindly to them. “Everyone. This is our human.”

Tani watched the almost bitter curl of Shepard’s lips when K’Ordae spoke. Shepard nodded her head. The humans had hair and this one had hers long and tied up behind her, almost asari-like, Tani thought. She wondered if that was a deliberate effort on the human’s part to fit in. Perhaps not, many humans wore their hair that way.

“Hi,” Shepard said. She had a pack slung over her shoulder and she dropped it to her feet as she approached one of the benches in the corner. She sat, as far from the others as possible, in bulky human armour.

“Well she’s not twelve,” Aulle muttered in Tani’s ear.

On Tani’s other side, Yasse chuckled. “That she is not.”

 

 

**Earth Date: 03/07/2177**

**Akuze**

 

Jane’s boot echoed in the empty prefab and she paused, lowering her rifle so she could pick up a coffee cup. The liquid had mostly evaporated, leaving only a sticky dark ring in the base of the mug, the tide line reaching halfway up. Another empty cup was lying on the floor, a chip broken from the rim. A little sand had been tracked in by the wind, building in the doorway. Jane lifted her rifle once more, exhaling softly as she rested it against her shoulder. “Prefab thirteen clear,” she said into her radio, her voice free of cracks and shakes. She passed the stuffed bear waiting on the chair and closed her visor, moving on to the next prefab with tears running down her face.

 

**Earth Date 15/08/2176**

**Zesmeni**

Tani dragged her hand through the grooves of her scalp and spat into the dirt. The matriarch who had met them at the door narrowed her eyes but said nothing. Tani wanted nothing more than to slam the old bitch off the cliff and ventilate the corpse. To calm herself, she paced away from the group, inspecting their perimeter. The black earth stretched out beneath them in jagged formations of cliffs and peaks, this dome protecting Zesmeni’s small population from its freezing temperatures. A few exosuit clad asari could be seen outside the dome, exiting the lithium mine.

“You okay?”

Tani glanced down at the human who approached her. “You’re short for your species, aren’t you?” she muttered.

Shepard raised her eyebrows, smiling slightly as she looked out over the dome. “This reminds me of Mars,” she said, as though Tani hadn’t been stomping about since they’d arrived. Shepard had little care for an unhappy mood. “A darker, blacker Mars.”

Tani gritted her teeth and exhaled softly, pursing her lips. She found it very hard to fume around the young human. “One of your home system’s planets, correct?”

“Yeah. The first we colonised, where we found Prothean tech.” Shepard stooped to the ground, trailing her fingers through the dust. “It’s a little depressing now. I swung by once to see the museums when I was living on Earth.” She blew the dust off her gauntlet and glanced back at the rest of the huntresses and the matriarch. “So. Is there some history here I’m not getting?”

“That matriarch?” Tani’s jaw ached with tension. “She’s the worst of my species. Conniving and manipulative. Predatory. She was prosecuted some time ago for a series of murders. She was not convicted.”

Shepard whistled a long, low note. “Commander K’Ordae seems happy to talk to her.”

Tani spat again. “Sometimes it’s easier for us to pretend than to face up to the truth,” she grunted. “After a couple of hundred years, it gets easy.” She let her eyes close and let her chin drop to her chest.

“I take it you think the good matriarch might be sheltering Mr Sammus,” Shepard said, staring down into the canyons and the entrances to the mines. “You know, if someone wanted to go underground, a mining planet is a pretty good start.”

Tani opened her eyes and stared out past the dome. “I think it would be remiss of me not to give you some hostile environment training, Shepard,” she said, a grin spreading over her face.

“Oh as do I,” the human said, assuming an unfamiliar, sober expression as she nodded vehemently. “It would be negligent even. And since the squad is busy . . .” She slung her rifle over her shoulder and beamed.

 

**Earth Date: 03/07/2177**

**Akuze**

“Are you seeing this?” Toombs asked, kicking a half deflated ball across the square. Jane didn’t lift her head from her scope. Her rifle was resting on the low wall that skirted this square, just beside the scrape of a pair of initials. Through the scope she could see only dirt, the arid landscape of Akuze, long flat plains of land that was begging to be terraformed and farmed. Jane could see a child’s shirt fluttering in the wind, ragged, caught on a rock.

“This place is like a horror movie,” Toombs added.

“Ssh,” she said to him, watching the other half of their squad crossing the plain.

“You think it was ghosts, Toombs?” asked one of their companions.

“Might have been,” Toombs joked.

“Shut up,” Jane snapped, her cheek still nestled against the rifle’s grip. “Something’s still out there.”

 

**Earth Date 01/12/2176**

**Caleston, Orbiting Cernunnos**

The baleful blue glow of Cernunnos in the sky offered judgement down on the two figures crouching behind the busted tank. Tani craned her neck over the flattened wheel and withdrew immediately as slugs ricocheted off the armoured vehicle. “By the Goddesses’ bright blue tits,” she swore, checking Shepard’s condition automatically.

The human seemed calm enough, bunkered down and letting her pistol cool off. She turned her head to face Tani and grinned. “This was a _great_ idea! Breaking off into a smaller team! Remind me to tell Aulle she always makes _wonderful_ choices.”

Tani grunted in agreement.  “We can thank her when we get through these mercs. How’s that singularity of yours?”

“Oh no,” Shepard groaned. “You’re not going to do the thing, are you?”

“It’s a perfectly legitimate tactic,” Tani snapped, shifting her weight forward so she was no longer crouching back on her ankles.

Shepard made a very human noise of disapproval, guttural and low in her throat and it sent shivers down Tani’s spine, nestling in her stomach. She stole a quick glance at the human. She was crouched up against the tank, a few strands of dark hair flying free, her pale face flushed atop her high cheek bones, her lips pouted in thought. Again, Tani felt a swoop in her stomach. She gestured for Shepard to take aim and cradled her shotgun in her arms.

“Your funeral,” Shepard said darkly. She bounced onto her feet and cast her arm out in a mnemonic. Dark energy swirled above the mercs, a powerful singularity forming, grabbing them out of cover. Tani took a breath and funnelled all her biotics into _forward_ , pushing her body directly into the middle of the singularity field. The proto scales on her skin prickled as the field detonated, tossing two mercs into the facility’s wall and dropping a third at her field. She pumped a shotgun round into his gut and heard the tap tap report of Shepard’s pistol dispatching the last two.

“I still hate that,” Shepard called, emerging from her cover. “Not natural.”

“Old asari trick,” Tani said breathlessly, hoping she wouldn’t spoil the effect of Badass Huntress by throwing up.

“Old asari suicide more like,” came the retort. Shepard toed one of the mercenaries, frowning at the insignia on his chest. “I haven’t seen that before.”

“Eclipse,” gravelled a deep, male voice from above them.

“Goddess’s Ass!” hollered Tani, aiming upwards before Shepard raised her hand.

“Hold, hold!” she yelled. “I know that voice.”

Tani hesitated long enough to catch movement out of the corner of her eye and she whipped her shotgun around, aiming squarely into the face of a squat volus. The volus cocked his head and sucked in a mechanical breath. “Relax, blue,” he hissed. “We’re here to haul your asses out of the fire.” And the volus’ gaze turned to Shepard who only raised her eyebrows.

A krogan dropped from the facility’s gangway, landing in a ground shaking crouch. He approached Shepard with what appeared to be a genuine smile, reaching out and ruffling her hair with a familiarity Tani found unbearable. “I thought you were joining the Alliance,” the krogan growled at her.

“Well you know how much I love asari,” Shepard said, clapping a hand on the krogan’s giant shoulder. “Tani, this is Raik Moyr. He’s an old friend.”

Tani looked up at the big, old krogan and wondered what the story was there. The volus pushed closer, his head level with her breasts, and stuck his hand up against her face, brushing the underside of Tani’s left breast as he did so. “Omm,” he said.

“So who are these guys?” Shepard asked her old friend. While the krogan launched into a lesson, Tani seized the side of Omm’s shoulder and leaned closer.

“So you know? If you so much as look at my human friend wrong, I’m going to see how long you can survive outside of that suit before your eyes pop out your head, you got that?” she hissed.

 

 

**Earth Date: 03/07/2177**

**Akuze**

“Night’s falling,” Garon said to Jane, patting her shoulder. “Time to catch a break, Lupine, everyone needs one.”

Jane sighed, blowing fine dust from her lips as she did so. Her neck ached, along with her back and shoulders. She longed for a massage or a long soak in the tub. Perhaps both. A pair of hands on her shoulders would help, hands that were not Garon’s.

“We’re bunking up in Eight,” Garon nodded to the prefab. “Toombs is on watch now. Come get some grub.”

Jane took one last look over the black night that had fallen over Akuze. “I got a bad feeling about this.”

 

**Earth Date: 28/05/2177**

**Illium**

“You need to lose that armour,” Aulle was saying, planting a tray of shots on the bar in front of Shepard. “It’s too heavy. You’re wasting so much energy carrying all those guns around. Do what we do, keep it light, trust to your biotics.” And she slapped Shepard’s ass as she made her conclusion, knocking a shot back down her neck with her other hand.

Tani glanced aside, noticing how many of the asari were watching them. Humans were still a little bit of a rarity and to see one drinking with huntresses . . . well the huntresses always gathered attention on the shore leave, Shepard had as much right to enjoy that as Tani did.

Shepard curled her fingers around another glass and finished it, shaking her head only a little as she swallowed the fire down. “You just want to see me all dressed up in leather, Aulle,” she announced.

The muscles in Tani’s core contracted involuntarily and Aulle was grinning, her gaze raking Shepard up and down. “Just so you know, kid, if you ever want a blue baby, you just come find me.”

At this, Shepard burst out laughing. The idea was clearly ridiculous to her. She used the bar to support her through her peals of hilarity, slapping her palm on the sticky glass. The other huntresses laughed, even Aulle, all of them aware of human genders and preferences, if only at an intellectual level. Besides, Aulle, with her brash sense of humour and unrelenting honesty felt no shame in her offers nor any pain in the outright rejection. Tani lifted a bottle and stalked across the dance floor, pushing couples out of the way in her search for a balcony and something approximating fresh air.

It was out on one of Illium’s high towers that Shepard found her, maybe an hour later, several bottles later and many dark thoughts later. Tani was sprawled on a chair, sagged low, and she watched Shepard’s approach through half lidded eyes. “Getting too much for you?”

“You’ve been in a sour mood today,” Shepard said, sharply for one who’d been drinking as much as she had. She nudged Tani’s leg with her knee and dropped onto the chair beside Tani, her body warm and hot, tangible through Tani’s trousers. Off duty, Shepard tended to dress in Alliance issue civvies, sometimes with a warm sweater slung over the top. As shapeless and unrevealing as her clothes might have been, they did nothing to disguise the lithe muscles underneath, the perfectly sculpted lines of a human biotic metabolism, curved like something from Tani’s fantasies. Tani took another drink.

“Okay then,” Shepard muttered. But dignified silence was never her strongpoint so she continued. “You might try and be happy for me, Tani. I’m twenty two years old and Steven Hackett has requested me as his personal guard for the Anhur negotiations. It’s a great opportunity for me!”

Tani sighed. “Well, I’m three hundred and forty five and I’m in love with a human who might as well be twelve, for all she’d ever look at me back. So let me drink.”

Shepard’s lips curved into an ‘oh’ that was never voiced. She stared at the empty bottles arranged on the table, the lights of Illium glinting off the glass.

“Sorry,” Tani offered after a moment. She shifted to the edge of the chair, not that it put much distance between them, barely enough room to slide a palm between their thighs. She shook her head. “I’ve been drinking, Shepard, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Shepard tilting her head to watch her. “Why?” Shepard asked curiously. “I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing to be loved.” Her eyes narrowed and she leaned in closer, her shoulder bumping Tani’s. “You _did_ mean me, right?”

“I meant you,” Tani said. She could feel blood flushing her face, her heart racing in her mouth. “And I’m sorry because . . .” she turned her head so she was looking straight at Shepard, at her pale pink face, her blue eyes, as perfect as any Goddess’. “I’m sorry because I know you won’t feel the same way.”

Shepard closed the gap between them simply be leaning forward. Her lips met Tani’s, soft as a petal’s, like all humans’ were. Tani was not completely unfamiliar with the galaxy’s newest sentient species and had found them aggressive lovers, keen to claim asari experience. Shepard, for all her steel in a firefight, kissed gently, not scared, but exploring. When she pulled back, she looked thoughtful, as if she was rating the kiss in her head.

Before Shepard could lean back, Tani clasped her wrist, holding her in place. “Before you say whatever’s in your head,” she said quickly, urgently, “I want you to know that I love you, but I love you in fifty years, I love you when I’m in the next stage and you are no longer fighting. I love you in a world where you love me but I want you to know that if you have even the tiniest thought of experimentation in your head, if you want to claim in a bar that you’ve slept with an asari, if you want to promote intragalactic associations, please, by the Goddess, let it be with me.”

Shepard answered her with a laugh, one arm snaking around Tani’s waist, pulling her closer for another kiss.

They moved from the bar to a hotel room, like giggling maidens, Shepard seeking out asari mysteries. Tani knew that, for one of her species, she wasn’t considered promiscuous, but she was intensely aware of the hundreds of years between them, the many encounters and people that lay behind her. And yet Shepard peeled off Tani’s clothes, left them lying on the floor, stalked Tani to the bed and ran her hands down Tani’s sides, exploring blue skin and kissing Tani’s dark markings.

Under the cool lights of Illium’s skyscrapers, reflected on the windows and casting spectrums on the sheets, Tani sought the stars inside of her, opening her mind to Shepard’s.

_The boy who was young and inexperienced, fumbling with her in fields and haystacks, something from another time, another life, that she never looked at too closely.  And then a cold and brutal man. Then harsh beauty and distant affection, kindness metred out in small parcels. Such love in her life, but all locked behind a door she never looked beyond._

Shepard threw back her head, crying out as her muscles clenched around Tani’s fingers. Tani kissed her exposed throat, so glad that it was her who had seen this.

 

**Earth Date: 04/07/2177**

**Akuze**

The earth moved.

Jane was awake before she knew why, her armour waking with her, her omnitool flaring with readings and alerts. The earth shivered again and she heard a scream crackle in her radio.

“Toombs! Garon!” she yelled, jerking to her feet and chasing the tremors towards the prefab’s door. Even as she did so, she realised this must have been exactly what the colonists had done. Their squad had even left meals out lying, coffee brewing . . .

“What the hell is that?” Garon demanded, clipping the seal on his helmet as he staggered out into the night.

Jane heard something sizzling, metal warping and lifted her rifle, identifying the next sound as an agonised human scream.

“IT’S IN THE GROUND!”

 

**Earth Date: 10/07/2177**

**SSV _Budapest_ , Orbiting Anhur**

 

Hackett was only momentarily surprised to find Shepard awake and at her station before him. She had undoubtedly heard of his early rising habits and endeavoured to be available to him regardless. As she had completed her transfer only yesterday, he wondered how long she’d slept. She seemed fresh faced and alert, clad in Alliance blue armour and with her helmet off. She saluted, crisp and smart and he was reminded again of the pressing need for poster children, advertising the Alliance out in the expanse of space.

Places like Anhur, the foolish wedding of batarian and human colonists, places that badly needed confidence in the Alliance.

He nodded to her, watching her snap to an at-ease position, and vowed once again he’d keep that fate from her. “Morning.”

“Morning, sir,” she said in return.

“At ease, Shepard. I don’t need you here to protect me.” He paced his short office on the _Budapest_ and took his seat. “Think of this as work experience.”

Shepard didn’t relax, but she did smile. “The Na’hesit have started a heavy public relations exercise, protesting, sometimes violently, against the Alliance’s interest in the Anhur Rebellions.”

Hackett raised his eyebrows, his messages filing into his inbox. “Violent protests are a public relations exercise?”

“It is a batarian faction, sir. Violence is often perceived as a show of strength, particularly within their financial sectors.”

Hackett smiled at her over the top of his screen. He thought he saw a flash of pride in her eyes. “You have been studying, haven’t you?” Scanning the message subject lines, he listened to Shepard’s continuing report. For someone with her history, she managed not to sound like a raging bigot when discussing the batarians, something Hackett admired. He’d seen some of the coldest politicians on Arcturus foam at the mouth at the mention of a batarian sharing a world with a human. Anhur was the hot potato nobody wanted to hold.

_ Critical – Classified – Reconnaissance Unit Loss – Akuze _

He read through the critical message, something on his face stopped Shepard’s flow of words. “Sir?”

“Shepard,” he said slowly. “You know the Lupine family, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Hackett ran his hand over his jaw, closing his eyes. He wished he had slept a little longer. “Corporal Lupine’s unit is missing. They were sent to investigate a missing colony on Akuze. The SSV _Trafalgar_ responded to their automated distress call a few days ago. The unit was gone, like the colonists they were sent to find. Corporal Lupine was retrieved and is in a critical condition in a secured facility on Earth.” He frowned at the encoded file attached.

“Sir?” Shepard prompted in a small voice.

“Preliminary reports suggest the colony was hit by something – matches some old asari records, krogan records, they call it a ‘maw’.”

“What does it do?”

“Judging from the medical records, acid, burrowing. Not pleasant.”

Shepard hissed through her teeth.

“You are dismissed from duty. You should be able to catch the next shuttle through the relay-”

“Sir, I have a duty here,” she began.

“Shepard you have precious little family left,” he snapped, glaring at her. “I wouldn’t have thought I needed to tell you that.”

 

**Earth Date: 04/07/2177**

**Akuze**

When the first payload hit her, it tore straight through the shields she had so carefully calibrated. Hours of calculations, overclocking omnitool specs and fine tuning signal outputs to provide the perfect casing to insulate her from the world. It fizzled and popped as the spit hit her.

Garon was screaming, clawing at the armour melting to his skin. His legs had twisted underneath him, sinking into the warren that under ran the whole colony.

The earth shook again, another rent appearing, already filling with sand and dirt. It was the perfect environment for a tunnelling threat, she thought, the soft ground would fill in within days, leaving an just an empty, battered colony behind.

Her armour began to heat and sizzle, screaming – or was that her? The acid was burning the inside of her throat, stinging her lungs, setting fire to her nerves. And again the thing roared.

The ground is soft. That’s how it hides. Get to the ridge, get to the high point, get to the rocks. Her armour was feeding her omnigel in fits and bursts, where the channels were not fused together, where her omnitool processes could still reach.

And so she crawled. She crawled.

 


	10. It All Comes Round Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past comes round again

**Earth Date: 15/09/2178**

**Rio De Janeiro, Earth**

“Lieutenant Shepard! Lieutenant Shepard!”

Exiting from the the Villa into Brazil’s bright, overhead sun, Shepard squinted for a moment at the small group waiting for her on the blonde sandstone steps. A drone clicked, took a picture of her and she realised what this was, and regretted that her fame didn’t come from riches and movie stardom. If it did, she probably wouldn’t have stepped out into a media scrum just out of a training exercise and still streaked with sweat and grime.

She held her hands up, her eyes readjusting to the brightness. There were only three reporters, which she guessed was a little bit less than a scrum, but they all had drones snapping away at her, one hovering particularly close. She batted it away. “Sorry guys, but as you can see, I’m just out of a training session-”

“Lieutenant Shepard as the hero of Elyisum, what do you think of what happened at Torfan?” a woman demanded. Her drone whirred in to take the place of the one recovering from Shepard’s swipe.

“Ah,” Shepard rocked back on her heels, wishing someone inside the Villa would catch sight of what was happening and rush to save her. They probably considered it another part of her training. She clasped her hands behind her back and gazed at each of the reporters in turn, ignoring their drones. “As you know,” she said, mimicking the tone of her old teacher whenever she’d skipped out of class to go hunting, “I cannot comment on current or recent Alliance ops.”

“Do you believe John Doe is the Butcher of Torfan?” a man said, almost before she’d finished speaking. The other reporters grinned, feral.

“I . . .” she could feel hostility radiating off the reporters. “I’m sorry,” she dropped her pose and flashed a smile. “I’m always a little distracted by that name.” That earned a small titter. “Look, guys, all I know is that John Doe is an Alliance soldier. He’s the same guy that has my back when I was on Elysium, he’s the same guy who turned up to save me on Mindoir. He’s Alliance. I have faith in him to have carried out his duties to the standard the Alliance expects and unless I hear otherwise, he will remain an Alliance soldier.”

“The Alliance must love you,” the male reporter drawled, rolling his eyes.

“Not so much that they don’t put me through hell in training,” she said, giving them a nod and brushing through the cluster of drones, hoping to lose them in a car. The door to the city-gravcar closed behind her, wrapping her in blessedly cool air, and her omnitool bleeped with an incoming transmission. “Shepard,” she answered, letting the autopilot take her into the air.

“You’re on the news, Sheprad,” Anderson drawled.

“Already?” She sat straight, peering out of the window to see the journalists dispersing.

“Already? I take it you’ve just met some reporters. No, it’s old footage from after Elysium. This Torfan thing has people stirred up. Your face is on three separate news outlets right now. Including one that seems to have found archive footage after Mindoir.”

She groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Where do they find these things?” she muttered.

“You look like you were a troublesome teenager.”

At the laughter bristling in Anderson’s voice, she scowled, kicking at the shuttle’s dash. “I didn’t even know that footage existed,” she grumbled, folding her arms.

“There’s only a moment of it. You’re with a few other refugees. I thought you should know.” There was a pause, where Anderson may have been waiting for congratulations. He continued when none came. “I’m in Vancouver, can you meet with me this afternoon? There’s something I want to discuss.”

 

**Vancouver**

Anderson had the kind of easy temper - if he liked you - that made him happy to wait for Shepard to grab a quick shower and a meal before taking the shuttle to Vancouver. She was glad she’d grabbed a coat before heading north, the rain was relentless in Vancouver, coming in long grey slates that rattled off the shuttle’s roof.

Alliance Earth HQ was her least favourite kind of building. The pod-like metal walls felt devoid of humanity, like a spaceship, something not intended to truly live in. She found Anderson in his office, stuffing ramen into his mouth distractedly while scanning a terminal. He ceased work when she entered, waving for her to grab a seat on the grey couch while he finished up.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she offered, taking her seat and crossing her legs, clasping her hands over her knee.

“Not a problem, thanks for coming.” He swept the displays into standby mode with a gesture and pointed to the pot of ramen. “Hungry?”

“I grabbed something on the shuttle,” she said. She wouldn’t have declined ramen, but Anderson was never that prepared. He’d have offered her his own meal gladly.

“Did you see the news?”

“Unfortunately.” Uncomfortable, she rotated her shoulder. Watching the old footage of Elysium had made her shoulder ache in memory. “Are you going to tell me what really happened on Torfan? Also: ‘John Doe’?”

Anderson grimaced, taking his seat on the opposite sofa. He slurped the last of his ramen down and set the empty pot on the coffee table. “He was an orphan, as I understand it, when they found him. The name stuck.”

“One of your projects?” she asked sweetly.

Anderson nodded. “You might say that.”

“And Torfan?”

“A victory.” Anderson met her stony gaze. “It might not look like it now, but this will be a turning point in Operation Burnt Skies.” He ran his thumb along his bottom lip, a classic Anderson tell. If she waited, he’d reveal some very choice tidbits, more often than not. “I recommended you for the mission, actually, but Hackett didn’t think you’d gel with Major Kyle.”

“Why?”

“Kyle has some . . . interesting . . . thoughts on biotics. Hackett was probably right. I’m not sure how you’d have handled Torfan.”

Shepard raised her eyebrows. “I can tell you I wouldn’t have lost so many people.”

“Sometimes sacrifices are necessary,” Anderson said heavily.

“Unavoidable, perhaps. Never necessary,” she said.

“Aren’t they one and the same thing?”

She thought about this for a moment, head cocked. They weren’t, she knew that, but putting words to it was beyond her. “Necessary is . . . it’s your will. You can regret it. When it’s unavoidable, you fight it.”

“I think I’d put that the other way around. But I didn’t call you here to debate semantics. How’s the training going?”

“Good, thanks.”

“They’re not pushing you too hard?”

“I’m sleeping like the dead at nights but I can handle it.”

“Good. John’s classed at N4, did you know that?”

“No.”

Anderson seemed pleased by this for some reason. “I bet the two of you together would tear up a room. That would be something to see. What about your friend, Jane Lupine? Do you think she had what it takes to survive N school?”

“She survived those threshers, I think she can survive the Villa,” Shepard said immediately, and not from loyalty. “Jane’s one of the toughest people I’ve ever met. Why? Has she been commended?”

“She has, and as I understand it, her recovery is well on its way. I’m just wondering. Her record is spotless. Yours . . .”

“Hey, my record has some commendations in it!” she sat forward, stung by Anderson’s implication.

“And a good few black marks too. That’s what makes you an N candidate, Shepard. You talk back, you don’t take orders blindly.”

“Jane is a good soldier,” she said firmly, cutting him off. “There’s no one else I’d rather have at my back than Jane.”

“Can she take the initiative?”

At this, Shepard hesitated, chewing on her lip as she considered it. “She _can_ , but she doesn’t always. N school would knock that out of her.”

“You’re not wrong there,” Anderson said gravely.

 

**Earth Date: 15/01/2179**

**Alliance Training Vessel SSV Comet, Orbiting Neptune**

“Your body is your own worst enemy in zero gee.”

Shepard grunted, her own traitorous body slamming off a bulkhead and going into a spin. She heard the laughter of her instructor and clenched her fists, willing herself not to throw up as gravity once more lurched back into the world, tossing her like a ragdoll to the ‘floor’, which was in fact five metres down the long corridor. She swore, splaying her hands and cushioning herself with a mass effect field, only to have the gravity cut out once more and her field knocking her into another crazy spin.

“Quit with the voodoo, Shepard,” her instructor drawled. “Use what the Alliance gave you.”

“John, I swear to God, when I get out of this thing I am going to feed you your own tongue,” she hollered, crashing once more and this time managing to get half a hold on the groove of the wall. Righted, she kicked off immediately, her objective still blinking with a NAV point on her HUD. “Conserve energy,” she murmured to herself, rapidly bouncing from wall to wall in her attempt to reach the locker. The blares of the alarms were getting louder but she kept that stuffed at the back of her mind, the internal clock that counted down to death. She didn’t like listening to the tick.

Her hand closed around the locker’s handle just as gravity returned with a vengeance. Her instinct was to create a field but she resisted, forcing her arm up from the deck to pop the locker’s seal. As soon as she did, gravity left them once more, but her hands were on the armour. She struggled to suit up in the zero gee, fixing seals together when the emergency lighting plunged into darkness, gravity normalised and the lights came back in standard settings. Shepard was sprawled on the floor, half kitted up, her vest riding up past her bra in her attempt to get the shield harness on, and John Doe appeared above her. He was grinning.

“What are you laughing about?” she muttered, accepting his hand up.

“You nearly made it.”

“Well nearly is still spaced, isn’t it?” she asked, letting the harness drop to the floor. “Man I hate zero gee drills.”

John ruffled her hair and helped her put the armour back in its locker. “Come on, our time’s up.” He was quick in resetting the room, neat and precise like a proper military man. Shepard guessed this was why he had sailed through his N training so far, while she was bouncing off walls. She followed him to the shuttle bay where their ride was waiting, still in a sour mood while John was silent, reflecting on his attempts to teach her.

“How’d it go?” their pilot asked. John wasn’t too wrapped up in his thoughts to miss a chance to flirt and he dazzled the pilot with a smile.

“We’re getting there, soon baby here will have learned how to walk,” he said, pausing to allow Shepard into the passenger section first.

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” she told the pilot, “technically he’s still under psych eval, you probably don’t want to get involved with all that.”

While the pilot’s eyes widened, John winked at him and followed Shepard through to the back of the Kodiak. “Ouch, Shep, you’re in a mood.”

Kicking her feet up on the opposite seat, Shepard rested her head back against the wall and covered her face with her hands. She felt John’s bulk sitting down beside her.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said softly. “These tests aren’t designed for biotics. You keep telling me you feel the mass effects.”

“Just like you feel gravity.”

“But you can’t fly . . .”

“No.” She uncovered her face and looked at him. He seemed perplexed, his lips pursed. “That’s too fine a field for me to control. I can warp armoured plates from fifty metres, but it’s a hell of a lot harder to lift a book off a table. I hear they tried training humans like that at first but,” she shrugged. “I wasn’t one of them.”

“Hmm.” John folded his arms tightly across his chest, glancing at her when she sagged against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “You’ll get it tomorrow, Shep. Mark my words. I just can’t help but think there’s something I’m missing.”

“Let me know if you figure it out,” she mumbled against his sleeve.

“Is there something else eating you?” he asked after a moment. “You’ve been in a bad mood all day.”

She groaned softly. “I got some bad news about an old friend, that’s all. Someone from Mindoir. He’s into some bad stuff apparently, it’s no problem.”

“If you say so.”  

 

***

 

The narrow bunks on the training facility orbiting Neptune were, Shepard was convinced, yet another trial to endure. She stared at the ceiling, listening for the sounds of her companions, their snores, the rustle of blankets. Her earplugs blocked all that noise out of course, left her with the thump of her own heart, but she still listened. Sleep space-side was not how she liked it. All that mass shifting, the fields pushing at the edge of her perception. It kept her awake.

That and the message that she saw highlighted on an omnitool even when she closed her eyes.

_Shepard,_

_I hope you don’t mind me contacting you. I’m sure you remember Mike Gurran. After Mindoir, he went to live with his grandmother back on Earth and as I understand from her, he fell in with a bad crowd. His grandmother passed away recently and her last few messages to me discussed Mike. She hadn’t seen him in some time, there was some bad blood between them. I’ve heard from Mike that he wants to come back to Mindoir, but he never seems to have the courage to do so. I wondered if you wouldn’t mind talking to him?_

_I hope everything is well with you,_

_Sal_

Morning rolled around again after a long sleepless night of staring at the ceiling. John caught her eye in the showers and raised an eyebrow. “You look like shit, Shepard.”

“Thanks, John. You’re my rock of support, you know that?”

“I got an idea about your training today.” John strolled through the locker room clad in his towel, a distracting sight even this early in the morning. Across his broad shoulders a tangle of grey-white scars told a story she didn’t yet know. “Get your gear when you’re ready, we’re off to the _Comet_ again.”

John had lied about the _Comet_ , or at least not been wholly truthful. The moment they got there, he  bade her suit up and took her out on a space walk. Her breath hissed in her ear, the steady intake of John’s almost drowning out her own, fed to her by radio link. She twisted in the sea of stars, staring at the _Comet_ getting ever further from them. “This is a very bad idea, John.”

“No.” He was calm on the radio, a voice in her mind, lurking beside her, even as his suit turned slowly in space to face her, further away than she could reach. “Shows you there’s nothing to be afraid of out here.”

“Yeah. Except the vacuum, the cold, the lack of food, the lack of water, the lack of air, the lack of pressure . . .”

John chuckled. He tumbled over his heels a few times, righting himself with thrusters. “Come on, Shep. The shuttle pilots are watching us, you’ve got hours of air in your suit. You’re not going to float off somewhere. Catch me if you can.”

Fighting back the feeling of vertigo as she stared into the endless sea of stars, she aimed in John’s direction and fired the thrusters.

“Don’t overcompensate,” John’s voice murmured in her ear. “Check your trajectory. Relax.”

“Why don’t I bake a cake while I’m at it?”

“You are really bitchy when you’re scared.”

“I am not bitchy!” She sucked in a breath, holding back from another thruster correction, letting herself drift in the void. “I hate this,” she muttered to herself.

“Hating it is fine, but you gotta own it too, Shep.”

“Did anyone ever tell you, you suck at pep talks?”

John chuckled, warm in the cold embrace of vacuum. “We didn’t all have lawyer daddies to teach us how to make friends.”

“So you make friends with the help of your fists?” Damn him but this helped. It wasn’t that her senses were lying to her, exactly, it was just that the information they were giving was not relevant. The pulse of mass effect fields, gravity wells that were too weak to be affecting her significantly, were still screaming through the eezo nodules in her systems. She had instructors who theorised that eezo permeated another layer of reality, they would love to hear about her experiences here. More than that, the Villa would want to know why she found this so difficult, how it would affect other biotics coming through.

“My fists make friends alright,” John drawled, easily manoeuvring out of her way as she got within arm’s reach. “As a matter of fact, they were making friends with the delectable Chief Hicks just last night.”

She shook her head before she remembered that it would destabilise her careful thrust and spent a moment fighting the urge to correct the spin until she knew which way it was taking her. “You really don’t care at all about fraternisation regs.”

John’s armour glinted as light bounced from the planet to the Kodiak to his shields. “Frat regs are born of armies that were stuck on Earth, in a time when humanity was afraid of itself.”

She had distracted him, she saw it, he was watching the planet now, so she threw in a hard burn of her thrusters and got so close their proximity sensors beeped. John’s laughter was a cackle in her ear. “Good! Again!”

 

**Earth Date: 13/06/2179**

**Arcturus**

“You like it?”

Shepard took a deep breath, studying the tiny, cramped living room with the kitchenette that protruded out into the living space, the carpet stained in front of the cooker, the windowless, featureless walls and the light that sparked slightly. She tried to control herself for John, she really did, but one glance at his eager face had her cracking up. “Well,” she said, collapsing onto the lopsided sofa, “at least now I know why it was so cheap.”

John looked so wounded, having to stand with his arms tightly crossed and his head hunched down so he could stand under a particularly low cross beam, that she started laughing all over again. “It’s great, it’s . . .” she couldn’t quite finish that so she switched up, “it’s just you could buy a house on a colony for the rent we’re dropping on this place. Hell, we could buy land on an incorporated colony.”

“Yeah, but who the hell would want to do that?” John wasn’t one to nurse grievances. He was grinning now, rattling around the cupboards in their excuse for a kitchen. “You can’t play the farm girl with me. I know you too well. When was the last time you were on that little planet of yours again?”

She groaned and brought her legs up, hugging her knees to her chest. “Not this again . . .”

One by one, various items were being accrued on the small counter space as John rifled through their stores. He set a griddle on the stove and began cracking eggs into a metal bowl, the shells coming apart as though they were hinged under his strong fingers. “I’m just saying.”

“Why am I never allowed to comment on your life?”

“You can comment all you like. I just don’t care. Pancakes?”

That was so intriguing she had to investigate. She found herself staring over his shoulder at his concoction. “I had no idea you could do this.”

“Trust me, kiddo, you may think you’re the Alliance’s big thing, but you need to learn how to live outside her if you want your life to mean anything. And that is why you should visit Mindoir some day.” He turned to face her, waggling a buttery spoon in her face. “You got nothing. You got no family, and I know how that is, you got no man, or woman, that I’ve ever seen, and you got no home to go to. What’s going to keep you going when you’ve got to make the hard choices?”

John poured batter onto the hot griddle, watching it spit. She rocked back on her heels and watched him. “What kept you going?” she asked quietly. “On Torfan?”

The golden pool in the middle of the griddle was beginning to turn up at the edges, so he gave the handle an experimental shake. “I like you, Shepard, so I’m going to tell you something.”

She assumed an appropriately interested expression, feigning the part of over-sincere student in the hope he would take it as an apology. He smiled at her teasing and took a step back, flipping the pancake in the air and catching it again in the pan. “The Alliance,” he began, “is not a military. It’s a gang. I’ve seen enough of them to know. It dresses itself in the rigmarole and it plays at politics, all that shit that you’re way more interested in than I am. But it is still a gang. And the leaders of a gang, they know who to send to what job and why, and they think they know where people’s breaking points are. This gang we’re in, it’s a hell of a lot better than some of the ones I ran with on Earth. I have done things that you, my little farm girl, wouldn’t even begin to understand. You’d turn up your nose and you’d walk out of that door and never come back.  And I will do them again, for this gang, because the gang’s all I got. You don’t want to be like me, Shepard. I’m no role model. I’m barely a soldier.”

“Hey!” She grabbed his arm, making the pancake slide across the greased pan. “You’ve got me, John, don’t ever forget that.”

He sighed through a wan smile and lowered his forehead to hers. “I think it’s harder for you, because you had all this family, all that love and security and it was taken from you. Me, I never had any of that, I miss the idea of it, but I don’t miss the people who never existed. All I ever had in the world was me, so I know who I am. I’m the guy who does what has to be done, not because I want to, but because I don’t want the small ones in my gang to suffer. But you’re not like me and you’re never going to be like me. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll rate N6 and start seeing some real action. Now. Lemon or butter on this?”

 

**Tokyo, Earth, 18/2/2180**

For one horrifying moment, she thought the man who opened the door was the one she was seeking. She stared at the pallid face on a skeletal neck, ghoulish in the neon yellow lights filtering in through the greasy windows. Words had left her.

“What do you want?” the creature in front of her asked.

“Mike Gurran,” she blurted out. Inwardly, she chided herself for being so nervous. It wasn’t this tall slum with people lying in the corridors, she’d seen some dark places in the galaxy. But this man . . . this man who for a moment she thought was Mike. “I’m an old friend of his,” she said. And then, because it was the whole reason she had finally conceded, she added in a louder voice “From Mindoir.” From the past.

The ghoul stepped back, his heel catching on an empty can and he stumbled, but righted himself with the slow grace of someone who had all the time in the world. He led her into a cramped apartment, not just messy like her own, but filthy. The carpets were long gone, the floors tacky under her boots, half empty bowls stacked in corners.

A pile of clothes on an armchair unfolded and revealed itself to be a man. This time, the sickening lurch came when she realised this _was_ Mike. Mike Gurran. When she was sixteen, she’d been lying in a field with him when the batarians had come. He looked nothing like the sixteen year old boy he had been, his face was more gaunt, his skin yellowing and eyes red rimmed. He raised his gaze to hers, shorter than her now, and he peeled back cracking lips to show off his broken teeth. “Mindoir,” he said slowly, rolling the word around on his tongue, tasting it. “Mindoir . . . Mindoir . . . no, can’t place it. Why don’t you tell me more?”

The ghoul had circled around, flanking her, but had taken a seat on the floor and was staring up at the ceiling. Her instincts told her it was a threat, but in the back of her mind she heard a voice saying she could get past every person in this building with her right hand tied behind her back. The voice sounded a little like her friend, the Butcher of Torfan.

Mike started to giggle, jerking his hand towards his face in an attempt to suppress it. “Sorry,” he offered, his head lolling to the side, “my idea of a joke.”

“Yeah,” she folded her arms. “You never were much of a comedian.”

The high pitched giggle scraped on her nerves and she clenched her fists against her sides, staring at him. “Your grandmother has been contacting Sal, these last few years. Sal’s been pestering me. So I’m here.”

“Yeah . . .” Mike seemed to fold back into his chair in one smooth motion. “I saw you on the vids,” he murmured in his sing song voice. “Great. Big. Hero.”

The ghoul began to chuckle, like a death rattle, and reached for something on top of a box. The small plastic capsule contained some reddish material. The ghoul cracked the capsule with his long fingers and poured the dust onto his tongue, his eyes rolling back into his skull.

“Hey, hey,” Mike’s good humour left him and he scrabbled across the floor, snatching the Red Sand from his roommate’s tongue with dirty fingers, rubbing into his gums and nose, sniffing hard. He fell against his roommate, a biotic aura crackling around his head as he fell back into a moment of ecstasy.

Wanting nothing more than to gag, Shepard bit her tongue. “Mike . . . you saved my life once,” she murmured, while Mike floated a can across the room. “Do you remember?”

Again, he chuckled to himself. “Mindoir . . . Mindoir . . .”

“Yeah.” Picking her way across the carpet, she approached the window, wondering to herself when it was last cleaned. That was a Colonist’s thought, she realised, it wasn’t a thought that belong here. Tokyo’s smog circled in eddies as gravcars raced between the skyrises. “How long have you been doing this, Mike?” she caught sight of the bed out of the corner of her eye, sans sheets and with more than a few marks and rents on the mattress.

“Hmmmm . . . while.”

“Do you miss your grandmother?”

“Mmmmm,” that had the sound of negativity to it. “She don’t want me. Never did. Mindoir . . .” he drawled the planet’s name. “Never wanted my parents to go.”

A discarded wrapper bounced against her head, directed that way by the ghoul who was giggling to himself at the effect. She sent it back with considerable force, a bare flick of her fingers, her biotics feeling different to the muggish, oppressive fields the sanders were creating. They had to be using a lot to get such a controlled field. She’d heard said that sanders could do such things if they used enough to build temporary eezo nodules, but the taste of those fields . . . it left grit on her tongue.

“Mindoir wants you back,” she told him, turning back to face him. “If you ever checked your messages you’d know Sal was rebuilding.” She crossed the floor toward her old friend, crouching down beside him, staring into his eyes. “I have leave from the Alliance,” she said softly, searching for the boy she remembered around the Landing Fires. “Come back to Mindoir with me today.”

The light in his eyes flickered. “With you?”

“With me,” she agreed. “I have transport booked. Why don’t you come with me now?”

“Now?” He was blinking at this, his addled mind coming to a troubling conclusion that he couldn’t quite place.

“Yeah,” she kept her tone light and extended a hand. “Now. Come on.”

 

The flight to Mindoir felt longer than it was. Mike vacillated between sullen acceptance of his impromptu journey and swearing at Shepard for thinking she knew better than him. He sulked on the transport, cursing anyone who looked at them funny, and there were a few, thanks to his appearance.

For her part, Shepard felt a weight upon her chest with every breath she took that brought her closer to the planet of her birth. The last time she had seen that little blue marble it had been swarming with batarians, contrails in the perfect, cloudless sky.

It took her and two attendants to convince Mike into the shuttle. While he was shaking against a bulkhead, she slipped him some grit, the intoxicating parts of red sand without the eezo, and an attendant glanced away, lips thinned. The shuttle tore through the atmosphere while Mike closed his eyes and waggled his fingers in approximations of mnemonics. They crossed over what had been Domocus, the buildings all prefabs now, except for the town hall, pockmarked brick. Crystal River rose up to meet them, a good few klicks to the south. The landing pad was fringed by sapling poplars, each one swaying against the breeze as she stepped out from the shuttle onto the land of her birth.

The scenarios she had been running in her head, the feelings she had been rehearsing, the range from elation to terror, none of it mattered anymore. Her boots were on Mindoir. These mountains were unfamiliar, these buildings younger than her, but this planet sang to her, it throbbed in her soul. She could smell, on the wind, the cookies her mother used to bake when puzzling over a problem with the power couplings. She could hear her sisters squealing with laughter, her brother chuckling at the dog’s antics and her father’s arms embraced her with the breeze.

Mike dry retched on the landing pad, doubling over as coughs wracked his body.

The woman who approached them was older, greyer, a little softer around the edges, but still her father’s old friend. Sal’s hands were shaking as she clamped them to her sides. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, tears spilling over her lined cheeks as she reached them. “It’s so good to see you,” she said.

Shepard did the only thing she could. She reached out to embrace Sal, shaking as badly herself. All of Sal’s tension seemed to break and she used that power and strength to hold Shepard to her, clasped all too briefly before she stepped back, holding Shepard at arm’s length and gazing up to her. “Thank you for doing this,” she said softly. “I know it can’t have been easy. I’m sorry I had to ask.”

She glanced back at Mike, the poor man dragging his hands through his thinning hair. “Any time,” she assured Sal. “I’m going to take a walk.”

Sal smiled. “You do that,” she murmured, patting Shepard’s shoulder before crossing the landing pad. “Hello, Mike,” her voice carried on the breeze. “It’s been a while.”

 Shepard prowled the streets of Crystal River. This was not the Mindoir of her past, that was for certain. She could see security shutters hidden in each prefab window, bunker accesses in the ground and more than a few offworld interests advertising on holoscreens. What would her father make of this, she wondered. He had fought so hard to keep Mindoir independent of commercial finances, and now to rebuild the colony had to take a few contracts. She bought a deep fried fish roti from a stall and cradled it in a napkin as she explored. The faces were the same, she realised, even if the people were different. Ruddy cheeked in Mindoir’s winds, tanned from their work in the fields, laughing and happy with one another as they gossiped over clothes lines. Her father would have loved them, she thought, scrunching up her empty napkin and dropping it in a recycling pot.

The sun set and the stars and satellites twinkled above a lilac dusk. Shepard chose a riverside café to wait out the long twilight, drinking a hot spiced ale that the café owner assured her was a new favourite on the planet. The owner would not accept payment. She sat outside on the decking, the river bubbling by, the warm ale keeping the evening chill at bay as the fire-birds glowed in lazy circled above the trees. They were some type of flying arachnid, she remembered learning about them in school, though they had never been seen as far north as Domocus.

“Hello, love,” Sal said, heaving herself between the closely packed seats and diners to sit with Shepard. “Oh, do you like it?” she pointed at Shepard’s drink, her breathing coming in heavy rasps. “It’s pretty popular around here. Too spicy for me.”

“I like it.” She wrapped her hands around the clay mug and feeling the warmth. “Reminds me of something the asari drink.”

“Aye,” Sal was fumbling in her pocket for a cigarette. She curled her lips around one and struck a match, sucking in greedily as the cigarette caught. The smoke furled up into the air as she exhaled, leaning back in her chair.

“That’s a terrible habit,” Shepard observed.

“Hmm.” Sal inspected the glowing end and shrugged. “Your father used to say that. You’re so like him, do you know that? Do you see it in the mirror?”

With a shrug, Shepard turned her gaze back to the swooping fire-birds. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “If I look for it.”

“Ah, I miss him,” Sal said. “But you know who I really miss these days? When I’ve got the Elkoss Combine breathing down my back wanting to build factories or when I hear about another one of our kids turning to red sand, or worse . . . I miss your mother. By God, I miss Bridge. There was never a problem that woman couldn’t find a solution for. Wasn’t a question she couldn’t give an answer to. She knew so much.”

Shepard found herself watching Sal again. The woman was older than she’d remembered, with long, deep lines in her face, greying hair and yellowed fingers. She looked as though she had been carrying Mindoir on her shoulders for so long that her back was permanently bent under the weight. “I think they’d be proud of you,” she said quickly, reaching out to take Sal’s hand. “Look at this place. It’s living again, it’s thriving again. I never imagined it could be like this.”

“Not the same, though,” Sal murmured. “I know that. In my heart. And there are so many like Mike, kids who were young when it happened.”

“What’s going to happen to him?”

“We have some experience with rehab,” Sal said grimly. She sucked in another smoke filled breath. “He wants to stop, that’s the most important thing.”

“I, um,” she took another drink, swallowing the fire down. “I wonder if I could have done something. I never even messaged him.”

“Hush,” Sal said firmly, leaning forward to catch her eye. “You hush about that. You had your own problems. I thought we’d lost you,” and without warning, Sal began to cry, silent, fat tears dropping down her rounded cheeks. “I thought I’d never hear from you again, or that when I did you’d be like Mike . . . or worse. You should see some of them, darling, they’re broken people. But you came out of all this,” and Sal waved her hand at Crystal River. “You came out whole.”

“No,” Shepard shook her head. “But there have been people along the way who put me back together again.”

A curious smile came over Sal’s face and she rested her elbows on the table, clasping her hands together, the stub of her cigarette sticking out from between her fingers and smoking into the sky. “Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, we were having some problems with this group of mercenaries, they would land at the outer settlements, steal a few things, fly off again. Harrying us, really. The Alliance were doing their best but you can’t be all over a planet. It wasn’t much but people were beginning to get scared. And one day, while I was talking with our Alliance liaison, this great, lumbering beast just hulks into town, blocking out the sun. It’s a krogan. It says it’s heard about our problems and that it wants to help. Our liaison is going red in the face and sputtering about not being extorted and this great big krogan head just swivels towards me and stares at me. It says it will do this for free, it’s been in the area. All it cares about is that this planet is protected from scavengers. I ask it why. It shows me all of its teeth. And it says that it knew you once, and that krogan have learned the young need to be protected. It was here for a month. By the end of that month, we never had another mercenary land on this planet. You’ve done enough for us here, don’t think you haven’t.”

Shepard lifted her mug to Sal. “To Mindoir,” she said.

“To Mindoir,” Sal agreed, taking another puff. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the lovely alexanndria who has been leaving so many nice comments!


	11. Red String

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are unseen forces in the tapestry of fate, and some connections are more powerful than we think.

**Earth Date: 9/11/2180, SSV Tokyo, The Utopia System**

Ameline resisted the urge to sigh, tapping her talons against her thigh, while her salarian companion paced the floor of the briefing room. She had already told him to calm down, to no avail, so she continued to tap her talons against her thigh, staring at the human architecture and waiting.

“Do you think we can trust the Alliance?” Golex asked, staring at the door, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Well we can’t go to the Hierarchy,” Ameline murmured, picking an imaginary piece of fluff from her armour. “Can we?” she asked her colleague, flaring her mandibles at him in irritation.

The salarian narrowed his eyes but was spared having to reply when the door to the briefing room hissed open and Captain Anderson entered, three humans trailing behind him. A lifetime of turian protocol told her to stand on her feet and salute, but she remained seated. Let him think she believed she was in charge, he might even start to think it was true. Anderson half bowed to her in greeting. “Dr Saldon, Dr Arrmery,” he said to them both. “Let me introduce your team.” He indicated the humans behind him and Ameline allowed herself to study them.

The first, a tall, broad shouldered man with close shorn hair and a scar that cut into his scalp did not meet her gaze. He stood with his hands clasped behind him, a hint of unease about him. He didn’t like this mission, she guessed, didn’t like the lack of information. The next, a red haired woman with unusually pale skin for a human, was doing a better job of hiding her emotions. She almost gave the impression of a turian, duty bound and all about the mission. The last human was different. She was watching Ameline with undisguised curiosity. She had dark hair tied back from her face, blue eyes that met Ameline’s with a hint of a smile and a nod of greeting, and a small scar on her face, high on her cheekbone.

Anderson waved to them. “This here is Lieutenant Commander Noble-Beast, Lieutenant Beast-Who-Hunts and Lieutenant Protector-of-Beasts.”

Ameline blinked and checked her omnitool. “I’m sorry, I think my translator glitched. Could you say that again?”

The male human smiled. “I’m Doe, this here’s Lupine and this one is Shepard.” When he did meet her eyes, she found herself warming to him immediately. Too bad. She had no illusions about the upcoming mission.

“And my name is Ameline,” she said, finally rising to her feet. She extended a hand to shake. “This is my colleague, Golex Arrmery. We work, I mean, we _worked_ for ExoGeni Corp, have you heard of them?”

“Yes,” Shepard piped up. “They finance colony drops.” 

“They do a little more than that,” Golex said, catching Ameline’s gaze out of the corner of his eye. “ExoGeni patent anything they find on these ‘dropped’ colonies. That’s where we come in.”

Anderson coughed to draw attention. “Because of the ExoGeni’s somewhat tenuous relationship with the Alliance,” he informed his lieutenants, “this mission has been classified top secret. You three have been forwarded for this mission but it is volunteer only. If you are caught or otherwise fail, the Alliance will deny all knowledge.”

This did not sit well with Shepard, Ameline could see, but she didn’t voice her objections. None of the three backed out.

On Anderson’s nod, Golex activated his omnitool. “Ameline and I are exobiologists. We evaluate any extraterrestrial life found for something that can be patented by ExoGeni or other interests.”

“Other interests?” Lupine asked in a dry voice.

Golex blinked in irritation. “Anyone who wants to buy. We came across something, recently, and,” he hesitated, looking to Ameline for help.

“It’s too big,” she said, and motioned for Golex to bring up the pictures on his omnitool. “Too dangerous. Too destructive. It was initially found on a planet in the Lusarn system, Tarith. Tarith has a chlorine based atmosphere so ExoGeni pulled out after initial feasibility studies suggested it was too expensive to terraform. There was only one resource on the planet ExoGeni wanted to keep. The klixen.”

“Klixen?” Doe asked, only for the shorter Shepard human to lean closer towards him.

“Big spiders from Tuchanka,” she murmured.

Ameline suppressed her surprise, even though she doubted the humans would be able to read it upon her face. Golex widened his eyes and nodded, bringing up a picture on his omnitool. “They may not actually be originally from Tuchanka but they are commonly found there, yes. There’s a large breeding nest on Tarith.” She pointed to the picture rotating above Golex’s omnitool.

“Big bastards,” Doe said thoughtfully. Ameline thought she saw Lupine shiver.

“Yes.” Golex blinked. “Unpleasant. Spit corrosive acid. Some sub species can also ignite the acid. Excellent bioweapon.”

Ameline was watching the humans. Lupine remained expressionless, her gaze fixed on the image on Golex’s omnitool. Doe’s eyes narrowed, a bitter smile curling his lips. Shepard looked directly at her. “ExoGeni wanted to weaponise them,” she said, “and it was you two who were in charge of that.”

“Correct,” Ameline said softly. “The klixen can be manipulated to spit acid. They attack in groups. Their outer shells are as strong as armour. We were in charge of the team tasked to capture and breed our own klixen and then fit them with control chips.”

She could see the three humans were stiffening, already predicting what she would say next. Shepard rolled her eyes. “Have you guys never seen a movie?” she drawled.

Biting her retort back, Ameline nodded. “As you have already guessed, the klixen overran our base, but not before we were successful. ExoGeni has now sent a team to retrieve the klixen. Mercenaries.”

“They cannot succeed,” Golex said quickly. His inner eyelids blinked three times, a sure indicator of salarian distress. “They must not succeed.”

_Not before I succeed first_ , Ameline thought.

“Agreed,” Shepard muttered.

“They will use the controlled klixen against colonies,” Golex added, as if Shepard had never spoken. “They are a terrible threat.”

Doe folded his arms, his gaze going to Anderson. “Now why do you need us? Just send a few Alliance warships that way. Make it clear to ExoGeni that the Alliance doesn’t broke biological warfare on such a sale.”

“On any scale,” Lupine murmured.

Ameline turned to the Captain. He smiled, but her omnitool translation programs suggested it was a false smile. Anderson cleared his throat. “In exchange for clemency, and secrecy, the doctors are willing to exchange information with the Alliance. If we deal with this threat quietly and quickly so neither ExoGeni nor the Council has proof of their involvement.”

“And the Alliance doesn’t publicly piss of ExoGeni, Shepard agreed. She turned to Doe. “Politics,” she said, humourlessly, earning a grimace from the taller man.

“If you volunteer,” Anderson said to his soldiers, “the Alliance will deny all knowledge of this mission. The _Tokyo_ will continue to the Arcturus system to pick up a crew change. Meanwile, you take a shuttle to the Lusarn system. You will land on Tarith, with the help of the doctors, you will destroy the research base and the klixen, and return to the rendezvous point in the Tasale system where the _Tokyo_ will be waiting, ostensibly picking up supplies from Illium.”

“And if we can’t extract?” Doe asked.

“This will be no Torfan, John,” Anderson said quietly. “I will come for you.” He stepped forward, placing a hand on Doe’s shoulder. “As long as the base is destroyed.”

“Invade a hostile planet and destroy a nest of acid spitting spiders before a team of ExoGeni hired mercenaries get there first,” Shepard drawled. “What could possibly go wrong?”

“You just can’t not tempt fate, can you?” Lupine snapped.

Shepard simply shrugged.

“Speed is of the essence,” Anderson told them. “Suit up and meet the doctors in the shuttle bay. Lieutenant Hicks will be your pilot. He’s waiting with the Kodiak. Dismissed.”

Ameline watched the trio leave and bowed her head to Anderson. “We appreciate the help,” she said. The human captain stared at her, studied her, really, for a long moment.

“Make sure it’s worth the risk,” he said softly, turning away. And she was too much of a turian to pretend she didn’t know she was being dismissed.

 

***

 

The shuttle rocked as it exited FTL and crossed the heliosphere of Lusarn. Shepard lifted her head from the report she was reading on her omnitool, surveying the shuttle’s occupants. Jane was seated on the same bench she was, leaning against the bulkhead, legs stretched out in front of her to occupy all the space on their bench. The red head was sleeping, hair falling over her face as she snored softly. Golex and Ameline took the opposite bench, Golex endlessly standing to pace or noisily comment on his emails, or ask some asinine question of Ameline. The turian remained seated for the whole flight, tapping her talons together in a constant, twisting pattern that looked something like a game Shepard used to play with her sisters and a piece of string. She couldn’t remember the name of it. Turians never really looked relaxed, but in the shadows of the shuttle, Ameline looked so brittle that a single jolt might break her.

For his part, John was in the cockpit, still flirting with Hicks.

A toe nudged her thigh and she glanced over to see Jane was awake after all. Her friend smiled. “How you feeling?” Jane murmured, _sotto voce_.

She shrugged one shoulder, letting her omnitool flicker off. “I was expecting it,” she said, matching Jane’s tone.

“Expecting what?” John squeezed through into the passenger area. He battered Jane’s feet with his hand. “Move up, Princess.”

“Princess?” Jane repeated archly.

“Suits you,” was John’s reply as he lowered his bulky armoured body down between them.

“And doesn’t suit me? I’m hurt,” Shepard teased, elbowing him.

With a grin, John leaned closer to her. “You’re nowhere near dignified enough to be a Princess. You’re more like . . . I don’t know . . .”

“A puppy,” Jane said dryly.

Scowling, Shepard leaned forward to peer at her friend around John’s chest. “Thanks. You’re still a Princess.”

“So what were you expecting?” John asked, narrowing his eyes as she sat back against the chair. “Something bad?”

“No . . . well . . .” she shook her head, catching sight of Golex and Ameline watching them curiously. Whatever else, this little exchange seemed to be reassuring their guests. She drew a deep breath. “Just another message from the Mindoir Recovery Project. They have officially recovered the remains of all my family members. I am officially the only Shepard left.”

“I’m sorry,” John said immediately, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m not. Better that than what the batarians do. I’ve been mourning them for years. Now at least I know they’re all together, and they’re at peace.” She met Ameline’s stare and the turian abruptly looked down at her feet.

“Helms on, people,” Hicks’ voice sounded through the radio. “We’re going to reach Tarith’s atmosphere in five minutes. There’s a lot of atmospheric interference, expect a bumpy ride.”

“Thank God!” John sprung to his feet. “Days in this damned shuttle.”

“Don’t like my bird, sir?” Hicks responded, “feel free to make your own way home.”

“Settle down, boys.” Shepard unfolded her legs and rose to her feet, fitting her helmet. “Check your seals,” she added to the scientists.

“We know,” Ameline said through her own helmet. “We have worked here before.” She twisted slightly. “Your pilot should be aware that there may be . . . aerial defence of some kind.”

“Of what kind?” John asked immediately.

“Of the whatever’s most pissed off kind,” Ameline said quietly. Once more, she wouldn’t meet Shepard’s gaze, even through the helmet’s impersonal visor.

John’s response was a brusque “weapons check” to his colleagues. “Sure you’re all right with just the pistol?” he added to Shepard.

“Pistols are best for voodoo,” Shepard said in return. “Besides, Princess has got her Valiant, I don’t see what’s going to be left for the rest of us to shoot.”

“Entering the upper atmosphere,” Hicks warned. “I see the landing site. The base looks in poor condition.”

John reached for the video display just as Hicks cried out in warning and the shuttle’s alarms started to blare. Shepard launched herself to the chair, strapping into the brace as the shuttle bucked and dodged.

“Enemy contact!” Came Hicks’ tense report. “Evading!”

Something smacked into the side of the shuttle, knocking them sideways. Shepard felt the shears of Tarith’s gravity acting upon them, dragging them downwards in an uncontrolled spin.

“What the hell is that?” Jane yelled over the blare of the alarms.

“Brace!” Hicks yelled. “Brace! Brace! Brace!”

Shepard barely had time to do so before the world went black.

 

The suit was beeping at her. Atmospheric breach. Before consciousness fully returned to her, she struggled to stand, coming up hard against the chair restraints and the pull of gravity. She caught sight of Golex peering out of the rent in the shuttle’s side.

“Ugh,” a voice in her ear groaned. The radios. She realised then that it wasn’t her suit that had been breached but the shuttle. Bringing up her HUD, she checked the seals, her fingers flying over the restraint releases.

“No, wait-” Ameline warned.

The moment the restraints were free Shepard caught herself in a biotic field, floating gently to the shuttle’s far wall. They were perpendicular to Tarith’s gravity field, a giant hole ripped in their side, flooding the shuttle with green gas. Ameline was struggling with her restraints so Shepard crouched to help her out. Jane dropped lightly beside them. “Seen John?”

“Cockpit,” Golex announced, dropping out of the shuttle’s gaping hole.

A clunk came from the cockpit and John clambered out, shaking his head. He had a rifle in one hand and something glinted in the other. Dogtags, Shepard realised. Hicks hadn’t had time to fit his own breathing mask when the hull breached.

“What the hell kind of aerial defence was that?” she spat at Ameline.

“They’re called Harvesters,” Ameline muttered. “They guard nest sites. I didn’t realise it would have escaped-”

John moved past them, escaping into Tarith’s atmosphere.

“Even knowing that they might have existed might have saved Hicks,” Jane said quietly.

“Maybe,” Ameline said, brushing Shepard’s hands off as she moved. “Maybe not.”

“You’d better think long and hard on whether there’s anything else you might need to tell us,” Shepard said, escaping from the shuttle. There was a hard drop onto Tarith’s rocky surface. The shuttle had nose dived onto a plateau, a little way from the base. The atmosphere was an almost literal pea soup, a thick green air surrounding them, fizzing gently against her shields. John was standing at the edge of a drop off, his fist clenched. Golex had his omnitool out and he turned his faceless helmet in her direction.

“They’re coming.”

“Klixen?” she asked.

Golex nodded. “We need to move. Now.”

“Before we do,” Jane said, unhooking her rifle and scanning the green smogged horizon. “There’s nothing more we need to know, right?”

The two scientists exchanged a visored glance. Both checked their omnitools and Shepard had the distinct impression they were conferring over a private line. Jane would know for sure. At last, Golex spoke up. “It is difficult to know what to expect,” he said, voice pitched high even for a salarian. He looked a small, very alien figure in his hard suit and big, reflective visor, standing in the thick green air.

And a very human figure surged to meet him. John pounced with unbelievable speed, pinning Golex to the side of the shuttle. “There had better not be any more surprises,” John spat, his voice crackling in their radios over the salarian’s gurgles.

“John!” Shepard snapped, pressing her hand against his arm. “This is all for nothing if we don’t do what we came here for.”

“We came to blow this place to hell,” John snarled, pressing harder on the salarian’s throat. His hard suit was beginning to give. “I can do that without this little bastard.”

She saw a blur of movement as Ameline produced a blade from nowhere, sliding through John’s kinetic shields and laying the flat of the blade against his throat. Jane had her pistol in hand and aimed at Ameline’s head in quick response. “Stand down!” Jane ordered.

The green mist furled around them, somewhere beyond their sightlines, the klixen were swarming. She remembered Raik Moyr’s stories about them, nasty, fierce creatures. And here they were fighting amongst themselves while the klixen swarmed ever closer. Through the slit in her helmet, she met Ameline’s small turian eyes, then she lifted her hands and took a step backwards. Summoning all her ability to remain calm, she spoke in a level voice. “Everybody needs to stand down right now. We need them, John. There might be security in the base.”

John growled, while Ameline pressed her knife a little closer. Shepard felt her mouth go dry and heart pick up a beat, until John stepped backwards, letting Golex drop to the ground, the rasp of his breathing harsh in her ear. Jane did not lower her pistol until Ameline stepped backwards, knife down.

“Good,” Shepard said as the combatants eyed each other. She was suddenly put in mind of her mother, who always told her to reward people for behaving in the way she wanted. “Thank you,” she added. “I want to get out of here. I need your help to do it,” she said, eyeing Ameline.

John reached for Ameline’s knife, and patted her down under Jane’s watchful eyes, removing two more knives. He searched Golex, crouching to do so, and came up with only a pistol. Shepard reached down to help the salarian up, handing him to Ameline’s care.

“The mission parameters haven’t changed,” John said in a gravelly voice. “I assume there will be an uplink to a comms channel in the base?” Off Ameline’s nod, he retrieved his rifle and gestured towards the base’s relay tower, just visible poking out from the mist. “We get out of these mountains and get to the base. We’ll send out a call for the _Tokyo_. She’s a hell of a lot faster than the shuttle, she’ll be here in just over a day.  We rig the station to blow, bunker in, and just hope to hell the mercs don’t get here before the _Tokyo_ does. Or we blow the station anyway.” He started down the rocky hill. “Jane take our six. Shepard, you’re on crowd control.”

“Yes, sir,” she murmured, approaching the scientists. “Are you two okay? Will you make it?”

“We’ll make it,” Ameline said tersely, drawing Golex’s arm over her shoulders.

 

They made it to the base with only two encounters with the monsters from Raik Moyr’s tales, and Jane’s armour was acid scarred already. The base was badly damaged, the comms tower looking a splintered stick poking up out of a pile of rocks. While they waited for Golex to persuade the airlock to open, John pointed to the scarred tower and the buckling metal under the dish. “Jane. Is that going to work?”

Jane was already standing some way back, using her rifle’s scope to survey the building’s infrastructure. “I think so. Won’t survive another storm, but it looks like the essentials are still there.”

Shepard lingered on their six, ready to block the approach of any more klixen. The rocks bore the scars of their sharp legs, they clearly were swarming this area regularly. Looking for vengeance? Did they remember what had been done to them here? She could see Ameline lurking away from John, unwilling to venture closer, but unable to leave the safety of the group.

“Got it,” Golex said as the door opened with a rush of air. “The air might be a little stale. I’ll need to check the filter integrity before you crack your hard seals.”

Shepard withdrew into the base slowly, letting the others take the lead. The airlocks cycled closed behind her, the green in the air fading as chlorine was filtered out and the base’s air filtered in. Her suit suggested the air inside the lock was breathable, but no one disregarded Golex’s warning. John paired them up. Golex and Jane were tasked with checking base integrity and messaging the _Tokyo_ , Shepard and Ameline with a hostile sweep, while John set the explosives.

The labs had been left in a hurry, she could see half full cups of coffee on tables. The databases had been well scrubbed, and she noted that Ameline checked every cupboard for stray datapads but came up short. In the middle of one lab was a glass-walled containment tank with plenty of acid scarring on the inside. Shepard stood where the scientists would have stood and tried to picture one of the klixen in the tank.

“You probably think we’re the monsters, right?” Ameline asked quietly. She approached the glass, raising the two fingers on one hand to trace the line of a scar.

“It does seem like you were asking for trouble.”

The turian reached up to break her helmet’s seal, despite Shepard’s protest, and took a deep breath of the air. Her mandibles clicked against her cheeks. “Air is pretty stale,” she said, turning away from the tank. “Lot of blood in it. You get used to that when you work in biological warfare,” she said, staring Shepard in the eye.  She passed Shepard by, her cloven heels clicking on the deck. “Come on. Let’s see if we can’t find any of my babies hiding in a cupboard.”

 

By evening they had broken their hard suit seals, messaged the _Tokyo_ , feasted on MREs and set up a base of operations in what had been the coffee room. While the others rested, cleaned weapons and scanned the expanse of green outside the windows, John paced the room and completed endless circuits of the base.

Jane finished reattaching the barrel of her rifle and checked the sight against a cracked mug on the far side of the room before she spoke in a low voice, meant only for the woman sitting next to her. “This mission feels like it plays all of our buttons.”

“Hm?” Shepard glanced up from the MRE bar she was crumbling between her fingers. “What do you mean?”

Jane nodded her head towards to the two scientists conspiring in the corner. “Those two, the way they put the mission at risk, they’re forcing John into his ‘mission or nothing’ mindset. You’ve seen how hard he’s taking it. There are bugs crawling around outside, I feel like they’re crawling on my skin. And this whole thing about it being bioweaponry, to be used against colonists? Are you telling me that doesn’t push your buttons?”

Shepard raised her eyebrows. “Torturing innocent animals pushes my buttons too, so does lying. I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

Jane shrugged, setting her rifle down on the table and dragging her hands through short hair. “I just think that if you were planning this mission and you needed three people to do it, would you check our psych profiles and think: that’s the three I want?”

“I’d see one N7 and two N6s that have proven to work well together,” Shepard said firmly. “I’d see a team.”

With a grunt, Jane folded her arms and hunched over, studying the scientists on the opposite sides of the room. “I think there’s more than an N7 rating riding on this, Shepard. And you need to talk to John. I don’t know what happened on Torfan, but he is hurting right now.”

“Maybe _you_ should talk to him. He’s never told me about Torfan.”

Jane snorted. “Why don’t you go find him and do that feely touchy thing you’re good at?”

With only a little muttering, Shepard got to her feet, strapped her pistol to her side and set off into the base. The air _was_ stale, although Jane assured them the filters were keeping the poisonous atmosphere at bay, but it didn’t change the taste of the air. She found John in the bedrooms, sitting on one of the bunks, dangling Hicks’ dogtags from his fingers. He snatched the tags up when she entered, but relaxed his shoulders when he saw it was only her. “Jane send you?”

“She’s worried,” Shepard agreed, perching on the opposite bed. “But she thinks this mission was given to us as a test.”

John was nodding. “If we get through this, you two will finally earn your stripes. Long past due.”

“I think Jane means more than that.”

“Hmm.” John shrugged. “I’m just a grunt. I don’t ask questions.” They sat in silence. John let the tags dangle from his fingers again, the metal glinting as it twisted. Shepard watched the tags swivel, waiting it out. “If it comes down to it,” John said, like the words were heavy on his tongue, “I will blow this place with no exit plan. That might be why they chose me. We three might make it out there beyond the airlock but your scientist pals won’t.”

“The _Tokyo_ will come,” Shepard said, sounding more confident than she felt. She pushed the toe of her boot against John’s knee. “Trust me,” she let a smile tease at the corner of her lips.

Gradually, John smiled too. “Thanks,” he said softly.

She tilted her head to the side. “For what?”

John got to his feet, reaching down to help her up. “For not doing the whole ‘Hicks was a good soldier’ thing.”

She folded her arms, staring at where their feet met. “John . . . this won’t be Torfan. You’re not alone here. Jane and I are going to support you.”

John gave a silent snort, his body going through the motions, his mouth not quite making the right connections. He eyed her. “I wasn’t alone on Torfan either. I had friends on Torfan too.”

Shepard smiled at and leaned forward, punching his arm lightly. “But you didn’t have me.”

At that, he did chuckle, even if it was with little mirth. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and kept it there until they reached the coffee room, where he released her before stepping over the threshold.  

 

The klixen swarmed their base in the morning, flinging their bodies at the windows and spitting acid against the doors and clicking their feet over the rooftops. Between the three of them, they fended off the attack, Jane sniping from inside the base in a hastily created sniper’s nest in a sealed room with a broken window near the roof. John held the airlock with grenades and a patchwork turret of Jane’s, Shepard supporting him by channelling the klixen into kill zones with every biotic field she could master.

She ate well that night. Golex handing her one of his own MRE bars. Jane and John created a facsimile of the plateau with the base in the middle out of plates, cups and forks, mapping out the best places to funnel the klixen. Their guns would last forever, but they were running short of food, grenades and materiel for Jane’s makeshift turrets.

Shepard drifted away from the discussion. The way she saw it, they wouldn’t survive another wave, and they certainly wouldn’t survive an escape into the hills if they decided to blow the base. She took another MRE and headed for the comms display, watching the blips for any sign of a ship entering the system.

She heard the turian woman approaching, but didn’t turn. Ameline came to rest behind her. “You fought well today.”

“Thanks,” Shepard said, manipulating some of the settings, and risking Jane’s wrath. It did nothing to improve their signal so she reverted her work.

“You’re a fierce fighter. Your biotics are . . . impressive.” Ameline drew a chair forwards, somehow sitting neatly with all her strange limbs. “I looked you up, you know, on the shuttle. They call you an adept?”

“We like to class things, in the Alliance military,” Shepard responded. It was clear she had caught Ameline’s attention so she shifted to face the woman. At least it kept her from fiddling with the comms. “It’s just a designation of my speciality. Jane’s a tech specialist so she’s an engineer. John’s a vanilla soldier.”

“It means that you have mastered a wide range of biotic fields, no? That the Alliance have authorised you to fight primarily with biotics? Allowing for you to carry fewer weapons into the field, to have a larger calorie allowance. It’s similar to what we were doing here.”

“Ha!” Shepard folded her arms and stared at the woman. “Are you really comparing me to one of those klixen?”

Ameline glanced away, revealing some of her needle-like teeth as she searched for her words. “Sorry,” she said at last. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

“You’ve chosen a strange career,” Shepard told her. “A death merchant.”

“What are you?” Ameline retorted. “Those fields of yours can be used against more than klixen.”

“My fields were protecting us today. That’s what I am,” Shepard said in return. “A protector. You package and sell death to the highest bidder. You don’t even seem too sorry now.” She leaned forward, dropping her voice. “You’re doing this for him, aren’t you?” she jerked her chin in Golex’s direction. The salarian was watching John and Jane’s battle plan, occasionally offering advice.

Ameline snorted softly, but hung her head. “Yeah,” she said softly. “He grew a conscience. But even I know that these klixen are too unpredictable, too crude. They’re instruments of chaos.”

“What’s the story between you two? I wasn’t aware salarians pair bonded.”

“They do, sometimes, but they have no sex drive. At least the males don’t.” Ameline sighed softly. “But that’s not what we are. He saved my life once. I owe him.” She glanced at the comm outputs. “Part of our deal with your Alliance was amnesty in exchange for our expertise combatting the kinds of things we created. We both grew a conscience, Shepard, but mine is withering under its own weight here.”

“There was something you wanted, wasn’t there? Some piece of research. Something about the thing that flies? That’s why you didn’t tell us about it, so you didn’t raise our suspicions.”

“You saw me searching,” Ameline seemed pleased. “They’re called Harvesters. I genuinely didn’t think it would attack the shuttle.”

“Maybe it remembered,” Shepard said archly.

Ameline began tapping her talons together again. “Do you have a partner?” she asked suddenly. “I’m not clear on what your relationship with Doe is.”

“He’s a friend,” she said firmly. “As is Jane. ”

“Ah.” Ameline tapped her talons together. “Then Doe and the pilot? Hicks?” Off Shepard’s look, her eyes narrowed. “My species used to have a prejudice against same gendered relationships. I wasn’t sure if yours did too.”

“We did. Once. But Hicks and John are soldiers. They were professionals.”

“Hmm. It’s hard to stay professional sometimes.” Ameline stared out of the acid streaked windows. “Trust me.”

Shepard saw no reason to miss an unusually talkative mood so she said nothing to make the turian clam up again. Sure enough, after a moment, Ameline began talking again.

“Professional. It’s a funny word. Means all sorts of things that we turians kind of take for granted. Acting for the good of a cause, that sort of thing. But we do things, professionally, we’d never do in our personal lives.”

Speak for yourself, Shepard thought. She leaned closer, offering the turian a half smile. “Who makes you unprofessional, Ameline? Golex?”

The turian’s eyes narrowed. “I told you. I owe him.”

“Someone else then?”

Ameline sighed, drawing her hand over her fringe. “Power,” she said quietly, so quietly Shepard had to lean even closer. “He’s magnetic. He keeps my conscience. I feel like every hour I spend here is a year too far away from him.”

“And does he feel the same way?”

This broke Ameline’s control and she rose from the chair abruptly. “Time to get some rest, Shepard,” she said. “Who knows when the klixen will return.”

Shepard watched the turian return to her bunk, and before long she followed Ameline’s advice, taking the first shift of sleep.

 

The comm unit bleeped and Shepard sat bolt upright, scrambling for the scanner controls. She barely had a chance to find the frequency before Jane was by her side, pushing her out the way.

“ _Tokyo_ to Blitz Squad, report?” Anderson’s voice was fuzzy with static and Jane bit her lip as she played with frequencies, fingers dancing over the golden display.

“Can we transmit?” John asked, leaning over Shepard’s shoulder. When Jane nodded, he cleared his throat. “ _Tokyo_ this is Blitz Squad. We can blow the base but we have no exit strategy.”

“Good to hear your voice, John,” Anderson said. “We can send a shuttle to pick you up but the ExoGeni ship is hot on our tail. Can you set the charges?”

Shepard twisted to see John. A muscle was jumping in his tightly clenched jaw. “Yes, sir. I’ll prime the nuke now.”

“Uh,” Golex hummed, pointing out the window. “The klixen are coming back.”

Jane shifted closer to the comms panel as John ran from the room. “Anderson, this will be a hot approach. We need to hold the base from the klixen, can the shuttle pick us up from the base’s roof? Be aware there is an aerial enemy out there.”

“We’re on our way. ETA thirty minutes, Lupine, hold on.”

Shepard got to her feet, checking her pistol. She caught Ameline’s shoulder and waved to Golex. “Fit your helmets and check your hard seals. We’re going to withdraw to the roof. _Everyone_ is getting out of here,” she ordered.

“Shepard!” John yelled from the hallway. “They’re at the airlock! _Move_!”

 

She fought like a woman possessed as Tarith’s sun dawned again on a green tinged day, the acid sizzling on the base’s bulkheads in a dawn chorus. The abrasive atmosphere whipped chunks of rock against her helmeted head when they structured their retreat to the roof. The comms tower groaned alarmingly in the wind, an added soprano note to the morning’s melody. She hurried Golex and Ameline into the relative protection of the tower’s base.  “Just hold on,” she hissed, her suit picking up a barely audible shout of agreement from the scientists.

Her comrades were blurry figures against the green mists. Jane’s sniper was beating out a metronome against the wind, the crack and pop of each shot echoing over the caverns. John’s assault rifle offering a high cadence in counterpoint, occasionally interrupted by grenade or a burst of fire from Jane. Shepard stepped forward, standing between the two. She held out her hand, summoning the eezo in her system and contributed her deep, bass thud to the battlefield’s song.

“We’re not going to last much longer,” John’s voice was crackling over the suit pickups.

“We just need to last long enough!” Jane retorted.

Shepard aimed a warp at an unstable ventilation shaft and closed off one of the klixens’ routes towards them.

“Great idea!” John hollered. “Got any more?”

She gritted her teeth and continued directing klixen into their range of fire.

The radios crackled. “Doe – Repeat, this is Lieutenant Moreau to Commander Doe! What’s your status?”

John gave a Jane a sharp nod. “Answer that. Shepard, help me hold these guys off.”

Jane folded over, bringing out her omnitool. “Lupine here,” she shouted. “We are on top of the roof near the communications tower. We need immediate extraction!”

“I see you,” Moreau’s voice sounded clearer. Whatever magic Jane was working on the signal clearly helped. “We’re getting some bad headwind off the cliff, I can’t land. Can you relocate?”

“Negative!” Jane’s faceplate glinted as she looked up at Shepard. “We need extraction now!”

“Okay, hold on,” Moreau didn’t sound daunted. Shepard stared up at the crumbling tower, wondering how the pilot would manage this. Perhaps he would bring the shuttle over the base, hang in front of them? The shuttle would be too exposed to the oncoming klixen if he did . As Jane resumed firing, Shepard caught sight of a shuttle fighting the headwinds as it approached. The shuttle bucked alarmingly and John swore.

“I’m going to hold position above that aerial,” Moreau announced. “The distance will keep the shuttle out of the way of those bug . . . spitty . . . I don’t know what the hell they are.”

Despite herself, Shepard grinned. She cast a glance at John, seeing him grimace behind his faceplate.

The shuttle circled them, spurting out eddies of dust and grit as it did so. It lowered over the aerial, but still at least six feet above the last strut. “This as close as I can get!” Moreau sounded frustrated, or exhausted, “the winds are too strong! If you’re going to move, move now!”

“We’ll never make that!” Jane cried out.

John turned his head to see and then stared Shepard in the eye. “Shepard. Now would be a really good time for some voodoo.”

“Yes, sir,” she muttered, clipping her pistol to her hip and sprinting towards the aerial. She launched herself at the first rung and felt the distinct surge of a throw field passing over her head.

“Shepard?” John called.

“Not me, sir, we’ve got help,” she yelled back, hauling up the aerial. The last six feet were staring upwards at the shuttle and she summoned a mass effect field in her mind, launching herself upwards with as much force as she dared. Her legs and arms pinwheeled in vain as she reached for the shuttle’s door and she cried out as she saw her hand just miss the lip of the deck –

\- And a hand reached out to grab hers, arresting her fall. She stared up at the helmeted marine, his dark eyes wide and surprised behind the faceplate. “Gotcha!”

She reached up with her left hand, securing it on the deck of the shuttle and wrestled her right from the grasp of the dark eyed marine, reaching back down. “Ameline! Get up here!”

The turian was already climbing the aerial, while the dark eyed marine helped to steady Shepard by holding her left arm, half leaning out of the shuttle to do so. She hoped he wouldn’t topple out the first time the shuttle was rocked by a gust.

“You guys better move it, this storm is picking up,” Moreau announced.

“Just hold on, Joker,” the dark eyed marine snapped back.

Ameline launched herself at Shepard, catching Shepard’s extended hand. Her weight was yanked Shepard hard enough to make her glad the dark eyed marine had held on. With a grunt of exertion, Shepard lifted Ameline up and the marine helped the turian woman in. Golex was next, considerably slighter. Shepard was glad he didn’t blow off into the empty air when he made his jump. “Jane! John!” she hollered into the mic.

The shuttle suddenly bucked and Shepard felt gravity lurch around her. The dark eyed marine was back, holding onto her hand and half-way hauling her into the shuttle. “Joker!” he yelled. “Keep it steady!”

“Trying!” came the pilot’s irritated retort.

A scream like bending iron shrieked in the air and Shepard swore, lowering herself back down and twisting to see Jane and John share a look. “Harvester incoming!” Shepard cried out. “Guys! Move! NOW!”

John slapped a hand on Jane’s shoulder, covering their retreat towards the aerial. Jane scaled the aerial like a monkey, latching on to Shepard’s dangling hand and making it up to the shuttle with the dark eyed marine’s help. John followed, the klixen swarming up behind him. He made it into the shuttle and reached back down to help her up, both of them flying back into the shuttle’s interior as a headwind caught them. The dark eyed marine hammered on the cockpit and closed the shuttle’s doors, “Joker! We go now!”

Shepard sprawled over John, collided against the opposite bulkhead. John’s hands landed on her waist to steady her and she lifted her head to face him. “Hi there, darling,” John drawled.

_Now will Dark Eyes think this is professional?_ She wondered, before immediately wondering why she was wondering that at all. She lifted herself from John, grimacing as her shoulder ached. Jane helped John up onto the seat while Shepard leaned against the bulkhead, stretching her legs out on the deck. She reached up to pop the seals of her helmet, pulling it away and probing at the bruise on her jaw with gauntleted fingers. Dark Eyes was watching her, only distracted when Ameline groaned. Dark Eyes turned to the turian, holding up his arm and linking his omnitool with the turian’s hardsuit. Dark Eyes was a medic.

“Was that your biotics we saw out there, Lieutenant?” John asked, removing his own helmet. He looked as battered and bruised as Shepard felt.

“Yeah,” Dark Eyes said in a low voice that was as husky as his shout. “I wouldn’t have managed anything as impressive as you though,” he said, glancing at Shepard.

“No one’s got moves like our girl,” John said in a voice ringing with pride and Jane rolled her eyes under her helmet. Shepard placed a hand over her forehead in a faux dramatic fashion. Dark Eyes had moved on to Golex.

“The nuke is going to detonate in two,” Jane said from under her helmet.

“You catch that Joker?” Dark Eyes asked, turning his omnitool to Jane. Lights flashed. “You’re pretty drugged up, there,” he said warningly.

“I’m good,” Jane said. “Got a hairline fracture on my ankle I think.”

“Medbay when we’re back,” Dark Eyes said firmly.

“Yes, sir,” Jane drawled.

The shuttle rocked and Shepard felt a smile tug on her bruised lips. “That would be the nuke, huh?”

“I think you can safely say that situation’s contained,” Joker announced. “The board’s lit up like a Christmas tree, that nuke obliterated the site. Now if I’m really fast, I might be able to get the _Tokyo_ out of here before that ExoGeni ship crosses the heliosphere.”

“Good,” Ameline said softly. “And then time to atone,” she added, meeting Shepard’s gaze.

Dark Eyes finished checking John’s readings and before he turned to Shepard, he removed his helmet. When he crouched down beside her, she saw that the dark eyes were set in a face of geometric planes and sharp edges, a jaw she might cut herself on and soft lips. Over Dark Eyes’ shoulder she could see John grinning at her. “Let me look at that,” Dark Eyes said, holding his hands up to her jaw, giving her plenty of warning and plenty of time to nod in agreement before he probed the bruise on her jaw. “Don’t think it’s broken,” he said, withdrawing his gloved hands and checking his omnitool. “Looks like your suit’s dealing with everything.”

While Dark Eyes got back to his feet, John was mouthing something obscene behind his back, earning Jane’s elbow in his ribs, making him grunt. Dark Eyes was saved from having to deal with a collection of buzzed up N’s by the comm channel beeping. “Alenko here,” he said, bringing up Anderson’s package on screen. “Package retrieved.”

“Good work,” Anderson said, relief evident in his voice.

“Joker pulled off some pretty crazy moves,” Alenko demurred. “I just held the door.”

“Good. Doe?” Anderson asked, and John heaved to his feet to address the screen. “I trust the mission was a success?”

“Just about,” John muttered, frowning. “We lost Hicks sir. This bitch withheld information that might have saved him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Debrief onboard, Anderson out.”

John gave Ameline a long, hard look before he sat down. “You’d better be worth it,” he told her.

“All data was scrubbed,” Golex piped up, “the program cannot be replicated. It _was_ worth it.”

Shepard wasn’t sure, but she thought Ameline might have flinched when Golex spoke. She sighed. “Anyone got an MRE?” she asked.

Dark Eyes offered a smile and a silver wrapped bar with the ‘Eezo’ symbol printed on the side.

 

**Palaven**

**Earth Date: 13/12/2180**

The sun was setting over the boulevard, casting long pointed shadows over the cars and the people. Ameline sat at café’s terrace, sipping her wine slowly, watching her people as they enjoyed the long summer’s evening.

He moved so quietly, she jumped when he sat down beside her. “Saren,” she said, trying to calm the flutter of her heart, the wrench of her gut, the conflict of emotions that hit her whenever he was near. He pierced her with his blue eyes and she felt the calm slide over her like a shield, cocooning her, protecting her . . .

“I haven’t received any data,” Saren said, glancing at an approaching waiter and warning him off with nothing more than a flicked mandible.

She resisted the urge to stammer excuses. “The ExoGeni team scrubbed their databases well,” she said, taking another sip of wine. “And the humans watched me too closely.”

Saren huffed air, glaring at her. “The humans. Anderson?”

“His acolytes,” she allowed. “They dogged my every step. But even so, those Harvesters, we never tried the control tech on them, they-”

“Stop.” Holding his hand up, Saren rose from his seat. “You failed me.”

“Saren, no,” now she did beg and stammer, half rising from her own seat. “I tried!”

“Enough.”

She remained half perched on her chair, watching him with a sinking heart as he walked away. Yet she could still help him, a voice whispered in her ear, maintain her position in Alliance R&D, forward him information, beg for him to return  . . .

_This is unprofessional,_ she thought. But she did not care. 


	12. The Myth Makers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well, what about Shepard?"
> 
>  
> 
> Three years later, she uses tangled particles to ask: "Why me?"

**Earth Date: 20/3/2183**

**The Citadel**

Hackett kept his hands clasped carefully around the coffee mug, his gaze trained on the screen in the centre of the table, his face impassive. Udina’s office overlooked the Presidium’s emerald and sapphire gardens, sparkling in the UV rays produced from the station’s upper light strips. Anderson was sitting to his right, stretched back against the chair, legs crossed, while Udina was studying the files, hunched forward. Both men appeared to be trying to be as unlike one another as possible.

_And now we play poker_ , Hackett thought.

Anderson raised his head.  “Doe,” he announced.

Udina brought John’s file up on screen. “Earthborn,” he said approvingly. The approval faded. “No record of his family . . .”

“Doesn’t have one,” Anderson answered without having to check. “He was raised on the streets, learned to look out for himself.”

Udina rubbed his jaw, staring at the picture of Doe.

“He got most of his unit killed on Torfan,” Hackett said carefully.

“He gets the job done, no matter what the cost,” Anderson said, turning his outstretched hand palm upwards in a half shrug.

“They still call him the Butcher,” Hackett said, taking a sip of luke warm, weak coffee.

“He _is_ Earth-born,” Udina pointed out half-heartedly.

“If it’s Earth-born you want, there’s always Alenko,” Anderson suggested, too eagerly, Hackett thought. _Don’t push it_. “He’s a high spiking L2.”

“He’s green,” was Hackett’s complaint. “He’s not even an N.”

Udina was now studying Kaidan Alenko’s profile. “Military family,” he noted carefully. “But he’s been in trouble in the past.”

“If it comes down to biotics, Riley has a N commendation. She’s going to the Villa soon,” Hackett said. “But I would say she is also too green. I suggest Lupine.”

Again the screen flickered and now the red headed woman was staring out at them. “She’s lived aboard starships most of her life,” Udina said slowly, staring into those green eyes.

While Udina was studying the file, Anderson’s gaze slid to Hackett. “Military service runs in her family. Both her parents were in the navy,” he offered.

“She saw her whole unit die on Akuze,” Hackett said. “She could have some serious emotional scars.”

“Every soldier has scars,” Anderson shrugged.

“True enough,” Hackett agreed. “But Lupine’s are bad.”

“Well you suggested her!” Anderson snapped in irritation. He sat forward abruptly. “It has to be Doe. He’s from Earth, he won’t balk at what needs to be done.”

“And he can’t give an interview to save his life,” Hackett pointed out.

Udina sat a little straighter. “Didn’t he punch the last reporter who asked him about Torfan? We can’t have that.”

“Well Lupine can’t give an interview either,” Anderson contested. “She’s a sniper to the core, a loner, I don’t think I’ve heard her string two sentences together outside of mission report. Alenko has presence.”

“In front of a camera, maybe, but he thinks too much.” _Come on_ , Hackett thought. _Come on_.

 “Well.” Udina brought up the next file. A dark haired woman, more suited to recruitment posters than to the N7 emblazoned under her name, stared out at them. “What about Shepard? She grew up on the colonies.”

Hackett tamped down hard on his thoughts and glanced to Anderson as he spoke. “She knows how tough life can be out there. Her parents were killed when slavers attacked Mindoir,” and in turn, Anderson looked to Hackett.

“She proved herself during the Blitz,” Hackett said. “Held off enemy forces on the ground until reinforcements arrived.”

“She’s the only reason Elysium is still standing,” Anderson concurred.

“We can’t question her courage.” Udina was staring at Shepard’s photo, no doubt thinking how she’d look at the Spectre Initiation Ceremony in full dress blues, a photo op if ever there was one.

“Humanity needs a hero and Shepard’s the best we’ve got,” Anderson pushed it, Hackett gave him a warning glance, but Udina was staring at the profile in front of them.

“I’ll make the call,” he said. “Thank you for your contributions.”

 

 

**Arcturus Station**

**Earth Date: 23/3/2183**

“I just want to know more about her,” Joker said.

“You met her!” Kaidan busied himself with his report, determined not to look over to the pilot’s seat and be drawn towards Joker’s screen.

“No, I hobbled out of the shuttle while she was whisked off to a debriefing. And that was years ago. All I remember is a pretty fantastic ass walking away from me.”

“Joker!”

Joker raised his eyebrows. “What? She can’t hear me.”

“I hope you don’t talk about my ass when I can’t hear,” Kaidan said, turning his attention back to the report.

There was the sound of tapping until Joker made a soft ‘hmm’ noise. “This is one classified jacket.”

“She’s an N7, I don’t know what you were expecting,” Kaidan muttered.

“She’s from Mindoir. Looks like she pretty much fell of the grid until she turned eighteen. A couple of early missions and commendations, and then it’s all classified. Getting more from the extranet. Hey, want to see a vid of her after Mindoir?”

“After she lost all of her family and friends and home? Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself,” Joker said. “We’ve delayed leaving dry dock for this woman. I want to know who she is.”

Kaidan’s omnitool beeped at him and he climbed from the low chair in the Normandy’s cockpit. “Well you’ll find out soon,” he promised the pilot. He reached the _Normandy’s_ airlock and crossed through with the VI’s permission, heading out into the bustle of the Arcturus docks. He spotted her not far from security, still clad in armour and hauling a sizeable kit bag over one shoulder. She was all but running and when she caught sight of him she paused, a grin spreading over her face. “Hey! It’s Alenko, right?” she asked, coming to a halt in front of him.

“Yes, ma’am, let me take that,” he offered, reaching for her kit bag which she relinquished gratefully, tucking a strand of loose hair back into its bun. “The _Normandy’s_ this way, ma’am.”

“Shepard, please,” she corrected him. “Are you my welcoming committee?”

He suppressed a smile and nodded his head. “Sorry, I forgot the flags.”  

At that, Shepard rewarded him with another grin, entirely inappropriate for a woman who could kill in so many different ways. “Do you, uh, know anything more about this mission?” she asked as he stopped by the airlock. She nodded to the guards, stepping into the decontamination field after Kaidan. “I’ve been stationed on Intai’sei for the last few years and suddenly it’s ‘get to Arcturus right now’. I was positive I was going to miss the _Normandy_.”

“Joker’s about ready to blow the clamps, he’s determined to give the _Normandy_ a proper shakedown, but we’d never leave without you, ma’am.” Kaidan told her, waiting for the airlock to finish its cycle.

“So do you know what we’re doing?” Shepard pressed.

He couldn’t help himself. He let the corner of his mouth rise up in a smile. “Maybe. Do you know who Nihlus Kryik is?”

She frowned, her brow furrowing deeply and her lips turning downwards. “No, can’t say I know the name. Sounds turian?”

He nodded. “Nihlus is a Council Spectre. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were making a few trips to the Citadel after all this.”

Shepard whistled a low note. “Spectre, huh? That’s big. You know, I’ve never been to the Citadel?”

He tried to hide his surprise as the airlock finally opened. “Really?”

“Colony kid. Gives me certain skills that the Alliance likes to make use of. I rarely make it out of the Terminus,” she said. She raised a hand to greet Joker.

“Hey, Commander,” Joker called in return. “Here to pull your ass out the fire, whenever you need it.”

While Kaidan scowled, Shepard just grinned at held up a lone finger, following Kaidan down the Normandy’s long neck. “Smart ass,” she muttered to Kaidan.

“Yeah, that’s Joker for you,” he said, and then, compelled by a persistent and irritating loyalty, “he’s not so bad once you get to know him. His bark’s a lot worse than his bite.”

“He has a point though,” Shepard said, and she watched him out of the corner of her eye for a few paces. “I seem to remember saying I owed you two a drink for Tarith.”

“Well don’t say it too loudly, he might have forgotten,” Kaidan warned her.

“Looking for two drinks then, lieutenant?” Before he could respond to her teasing, she pointed to the CIC as they passed. “I read the brief, but what do you think of this design? I can’t quite get my head around how you’re supposed to communicate this far apart.”

“We’ve only been in dock so far,” Kaidan palmed the control of the door to the stairs but as it opened he pointed to the galaxy map. “It seems to be working well though. And that map, if you get the chance to stand there, you should take it. It’s a hell of a view.”

He could see that he had impressed her, somehow, and she followed him down the stairs with an inscrutable smile. “I might take you up on that.”

Kaidan gestured to the mess and the pods. “You’re on the swing shift with me and swing uses the aft two pods on the starboard and the aft pod on the port. If I were you, I’d lay claim on the port, starboard gets some odd vibrations from the medbay sometimes. And as we’re swing we also get priority on any unused pods when needed.”

Shepard nodded, making a face.

“Not a fan?” he guessed, pausing by the lockers.

“One thing about being in the Terminus? At least on Intai’sei  I had an apartment. And I had a bed. You know, a real one? With pillows and mattresses?”

“I’m familiar with the concept,” he told her dryly. He patted the locker, dumping her kit bag in front. “I’ll be in the cockpit with Joker, if you need me.” He hesitated as Joker’s voice came over the comms, asking them to prepare for leaving the dock. “I just want to say, I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Again the inscrutable smile, as if she didn’t quite believe him, but she bowed her head. “Me too,” she said, unzipping the large kit bag and beginning to stuff her locker full.

“So what’s she like?” Joker asked as he reclaimed his chair.

Kaidan rolled his eyes. “Short,” he responded.

At that, Joker chuckled. “Hell, Kaidan, if I didn’t know better I’d say you liked her.” He quietened down when Nihlus approached, watching their exit from Arcturus Station. Joker gave the turian a sidelong look, ending it with a raised eyebrow in Kaidan’s direction. “We’re about ten minutes out from the relay,” he said. “So . . .”

“I’ll watch from here,” Nihlus assured them, and Kaidan suppressed a smile.

 

**Eden Prime**

The turian was dead less than a few hours later. Kaidan crouched over the metallic hulk of a body, tuning his omnitool to the Spectre’s suit, with little hope of a result. Williams paced the plaza, her suit flecked with scarlet, repeatedly scanning the burning horizon. The Chief was wound tight, he wondered if this was the first real combat she’d seen. By contrast, Shepard was moving with an animal grace, like a cat, not a footstep in the wrong place. After her quick survey, she crouched by Kaidan and Nihlus, her head tilted to rest her ear against her shoulder as she regarded the dead man. “That was a polonium round, close quarters,” she said.

While Kaidan nodded his agreement, Williams drew closer. “How can you tell?”

Shepard tapped two fingers on Nihlus’ breastplate. “The warping on the armour, characteristic pattern, flesh underneath has a ‘bubbling’ texture. We see a lot of this out in the Terminus, Chief,” she said, imparting her knowledge eagerly, giving the Chief a reassuring nod as she popped back onto her feet. “Illegal.”

Kaidan cut the omnitool’s feed. It was also a nasty way to go, but neither he, nor Shepard, said it. If Williams was worth her salt, she’d know that anyway.

 

“Oh shit!” Williams’ voice shook as Kaidan linked his omnitool with Shepard’s suit. “Is she-?”

“She’s fine,” Kaidan snapped, studying the suit readout. “Alenko to _Normandy_ we need a medical evac team at my location, ASAP. Shepard is wounded and unconscious.” 

Williams knelt beside him. “What can I do?” she asked, her voice steadier. He glanced up, catching her expression, drawn, worried, but determined to help. Poor kid. This was one hell of a combat run.

“Secure the area, make sure the Normandy has a clear approach, throw out a flare,” he told her. “Shepard’s going to be fine,” he added, and she nodded, believing him, hurrying away to help in the best way she could. Kaidan leaned in closer over the prone Commander, staring at the flashes of blue he could see under the flickering eyelids. “You hear me, Commander? You’re going to be fine,” he hissed. “Don’t make a liar of me.”

 

**Earth Date: 27/3/2183**

**Terra Nova**

The Axle was one of many ‘miners bars’ on Terra Nova, dark, crowded and the best place to go to trade information about mineral finds out in the galaxy. Gale wasn’t listening to the gossip tonight. He sat with a whisky, watching the extranet news report above the bar.

“I know her,” he said to the man sitting beside him. The woman on the extranet screen stood to attention in front of the Council, her armour gleaming.

“Really?” his companion asked, brow furrowing.

The extranet ticker was captioning Shepard’s inauguration to the Spectres, the Council’s diatribe, and then it cut to an interview, Shepard talking about how proud she was to represent humanity, her hopes for humanity. Gale smiled and raised his glass to the sreen. “I sure do,” he said.

His companion signalled the barman, pointing surreptitiously to Gale’s half empty glass. He scooted his stool a little closer. “What’s she like?”

 

**Earth Date: 25/5/2183**

**Illium**

The huntresses were prowling Illium’s entertainment district tonight, leaving Aethyta with a quiet bar to tend. So long as she kept the huntresses’ drinks filled, they were happy, and property destruction was kept at a minimum.

One of the huntresses, an attractive maiden, sauntered up to the bar with a tray of empty, sticky glasses. “Thanks, hon,” Aethyta took the tray, dumping it in the washup area. “Another round?”

“You betcha, and an extra round of Azure Sharps,” the maiden said, leaning against the bar. Her attention drifted to the extranet feed while Aethyta fetched a new round of drinks. “I know her,” the maiden said, pointing to the human woman on the feed. “She ran with our company for a bit.”

Aethyta sloshed some spirits into each of the shot glasses, eyeing the interview that was playing. “Yeah?” She began sprinkling crystallised billa root into each of the shots, watching them fizz. “Human Spectres. You think it will last?”

“She’ill make it last,” the maiden said. She reached forward to shake Aethyta’s hand. “Tani,” she introduced herself. “Friend of Shepard.”

With a grin, Aethyta shook Tani’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Now how about these drinks?”

 

**Earth Date 30/8/2183**

**Palaven**

“Shepard is becoming an annoyance.”

These days, Ameline found it difficult to look at him, painful, almost. She tapped her talons against the tabletop, a cadence to match the rain pattering on the umbrella. Saren was seated so he sat just inside the umbrella’s shelter and a trickle of rainwater drizzled against the back of his fringe. He didn’t seem to notice.

_I’m sorry. I should have killed her for you year ago. I will kill her now if that helps you. I wish to serve you. To only serve you. To serve you and your gods._

“Tell me what you know of her,” Saren commanded.

Ameline could hear the whispers echoing in her skull, shivering her heart, chilling her soul. It hurt to look at him, needles stabbing at her eyes, but she raised her head and looked. “She could beat you,” she said, and the needles turned to swords, she had to look away, her breath shaking. “She is strong enough,” she managed. “You’re going to have to be careful.”

She could feel he was watching her, too painful to confront. “Interesting,” he said slowly.

 

**Earth Date: 9/9/2183**

**Cronos Station**

The video flickered and Dr Ysannde tapped the display. “There! You see that! Before she drops from that box she uses a field to soften the landing. Then she uses a warp almost immediately on those approaching operatives.” Ysannde whistled softly. “We need the Phantom project to study these recordings. We also need more information.”

Her colleague raised his eyebrows. “What are you saying?”

“Can we get her into another one of our bases?” Ysannde asked. “Preferably one where we’ve got a lot of tech . . . I want to see how she deals with that. Oh this is beautiful, look, just _look_ at that, she’s got her team setting up fields for her so she can detonate them. How does she . . . just look at that!” Ysannde clucked her tongue, restarting the footage. “The Phantom project is going to learn a lot from Shepard. Mark my words.”

 

 

**Earth Date 30/11/2183**

**Earth**

Thandie Alenko poured her husband a fresh mug of coffee, much to his alarm as her attention was fixed on the news bulletin featuring their son.

“We are recording,” he reminded her, gently extricating the pot from her hand and setting it on the table.

“Yes but I want to see it all now,” his wife responded, pushing him further along the sofa and stealing his spot. “Oh look!” she grasped his hand, pointing to the screen where their son was being interviewed. She grinned. “My baby, hero of the Battle of the Citadel.”

“That honour will probably go to Shepard,” her husband reminded her, but he kissed her cheek. “Kaidan was on the _Normandy_ , not on the Citadel.”

“Oh shush.” Thandie poked him hard in the ribs and then she shushed him again as Kaidan started to talk about Commander Shepard, how proud he was to serve with her, and the station elected to keep his audio running over stock footage of Commander Shepard. “She’s pretty, don’t you think?”

Her husband chuckled. “Don’t go getting any ideas. She his superior officer.”

“He likes her.”

“Kaidan knows better than that.”

Thandie shook her head. “I’ve known my son for thirty three years. I know when he likes a girl.”

“Honey . . .”

Thandie curled her legs up underneath her, watching the rest of the news reel without upsetting her husband with any unusual notions like fraternisation or Kaidan having feelings for anyone. While she watched, she let her mind wander, imagining Kaidan bringing the Hero of the Citadel home for Christmas lunch. The woman had lost her family on Mindoir, to the best of Thandie’s recollection, she’d probably like a good old fashioned Christmas. Maybe she’d like to be part of the Alenkos’ traditions.

In this little fantasy, of course, there was no traditional shouting match between Kaidan and his father, and at some point, a small, curly haired little girl with Shepard’s cheeky smile was stealing gingerbread from the table while Thandie’s back was turned.

Thandie had to chuckle at her own imagination.

 

**Earth Date: 28/12/2183**

**Arcturus Station**

“Have you heard the reports?”

Hackett didn’t face the comms unit. He remained by the window, staring out at the stars and light trails of FTL engines. “I’ve heard from Alenko.”

Anderson’s sigh came over the comms. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

“The search ships have been looking, but . . .” Hackett took a deep breath to steady himself. He watched the stars, thought about the hundreds lost out there. He couldn’t pretend that Shepard wasn’t different, that this didn’t hurt, deeply, personally . . . “We may have to reconsider our position?”

“On the Reapers?” Anderson asked heavily.

“It will be difficult to push the issue without,” he faltered, gritting his teeth. “Without her.”

Anderson was silent for a moment. The relay flared with light, a blip in the stars in Hackett’s window, another ship coming to Arcturus, bearing a hundred new soldiers with a hundred new stories and a hundred worthy souls. “What do we do?” Anderson asked.

Hackett shook his head, bracing his arms on the edge of the window. “For now? We mourn.”

 

**Earth Date: 15/9/2184**

**Mindoir**

“Which do you prefer?” Sal flicked the images off her omnitool and onto the big screen in the meeting hall. She glanced at Mike, saw the way he winced. She turned her attention back to the two concept seals for the colony. In the first, a lone figure stood in the fields, framed against the sun, an N7 stripe clear on her shoulder. The second was shot of the figure’s face, a small smile on her lips, her eyes searching for something in the distance. Sal didn’t know where the image had come from, one of the stock images taken somewhere during the Eden Prime War. In it, Shepard looked happy.

“The first,” Mike said softly.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Mike looked at his hands. “I know why we’re using her but . . . let her rest in peace, you know? I don’t want her staring out at me on every settler document.”

Sal pressed her lips together, looking back at the screen. “I think I do,” she said.

 

 

**Earth Date: 15/12/2184**

**Tuchanka**

Urdnot Wrex shifted on his throne, watching the ancient krogan who heaved his bulk up onto the dais. “The Raik clan deigns to meet with me at last?” he growled. “Why should I listen now?”

The old, yellow skinned krogan coughed once and spat on Tuchanka’s barren earth. “I lied, Urdnot Wrex, to your guards.” And he laughed as those same guards leapt up. Wrex held up a hand to stop them, wondering what this old creature might have in store. “I am Raik Moyr, but I am not an emissary from the Raik clan. I come alone, with one question.”

Wrex eyed his guards, each one tense and ready to leap on the old Battlemaster. He bared his teeth in a smile. “Ask, Old One.”

“You served with Shepard, the human from Mindoir?”

Whatever he was expecting, it was not this. He felt the peculiar sense of loss that dogged his steps whenever he thought of Shepard and the _Normandy’s_ destruction. He could see Moyr’s gazed was fixed upon him, studying his reactions, weighing them. “Yes,” he said. “I served with Shepard. A great warrior.”

Moyr smiled then, revealing plenty of teeth. “I taught Shepard,” he revealed. “I wish to ally myself with Clan Urdnot, if you will take me.”

Wrex rose from his throne and nodded to his guards. “By all means, Battlemaster,” he said, bowing his head in recognition of the Old One’s achievements. “We could always use Old Warriors.” He chuckled to himself as Moyr left, and glanced at the night sky, the void. “Who will you send me next, Shepard?”

 

 

**Earth Date: 15/9/2185**

**From** : Jane Lupine

**To:** John Doe

**Subject** : The news

Have you seen the news lately? Have you seen those pictures? It sure as hell looks like her. Are the rumours true? Is she with Cerberus?

 

**From** : John Doe

**To** : Jane Lupine

**Subject** : Re: The news

I know as much as you do, Princess.

 

**From** : Jane Lupine

**To:** John Doe

**Subject** : Re: The news

She wouldn’t work with Cerberus, damn it.

 

**From** : John Doe

**To** : Jane Lupine

**Subject** : Re: The news

I don’t know. You always said she had a weak spot for colonists. There is a lot of nasty shit going on in the Terminus systems.

 

**From** : Jane Lupine

**To:** John Doe

**Subject** : Re: The news

You can hedge your bets all you like, John. You know her. I know her.

 

 

**Earth Date: 2/2/2186**

**Omega**

The woman on the extranet news report was cuffed and walking with head bowed. Few of the dark little bar’s patrons paid any attention. The news was old now, even out on Omega, and in the bar the poker game kept going, the drinkers kept drinking and only one man in the corner pointed to the screen. “Her,” he wheezed. “I fucked her.”

Fucking a Spectre always garners some interest, and the man earned a few sideways glances.

“Yeah,” he said, to no one in particular. “She loved to suck my cock.”

“Bullshit,” announced a woman at the bar.

“I shit you not,” the man sat forward in his chair, holding court now. “She was seventeen. She used to beg for it.”

One grey eye and one blue eye regarded him from behind a hand of cards. Unknowingly, the man continued.

“She had great tits. Great ass too. Unhh I would lie there and she would just - ” Shawn’s last words were drowned out by the crack of a pistol. He slumped forward over the table, bleeding into his drink, not that he cared much about that anymore.

Zaeed Massani opened his omnitool to transfer a few credits to the bar owner. “Trash like that brings the whole place down,” he said, turning back to his game. “Where were we?”

 

**Earth Date: 1/5/2186**

**Thessia**

Matriarch Calline ran her fingers over her scalp and sighed. “We need to tell the humans,” she told her companions. “We kept it secret too long.”

“Your affection for the humans is noted,” Tevos began,

“Listen to me, Tevos!” She was on her feet before she realised, her anger crackling under her skin. “I will not be the doom of the galaxy because I am too proud to tell the humans we were using a crib sheet for the test!”

“Calline, _really_ ,” Lidanya murmured.

“We. Must. Speak.” Calline grated. “I have spent time with the humans, I-”

“Too much time?” Tevos asked curtly. “You play with their biotics programs, but you don’t know them half as well as you think, Calline. Even if Shepard somehow manages to defeat the Reapers, we here today will be around long after the human heroes are dead. We must not be rash.”

Calline closed her eyes, breathing deeply, soothing away her rage. “My fellow Matriarchs,” she said, her voice remarkably steady. “If ever there was a time to be rash, it is _now_. On the eve of the end of the world.”

 

**Earth Date: 24/6/2186**

**SSV _Orizaba_**

Hannah Lupine stepped into the shower with aching muscles, her shoulders in knots, her back one long line of pain. She closed her eyes against the fall of water.

She hadn’t heard from her daughter in months.

And every time she saw Shepard in the news, the woman looked closer to death.

Running her hands through the damp tangle of hair, she screwed her eyes shut. Her husband . . . reports weren’t in, but she felt it, somewhere deep in her heart. His ship was gone. It had been out in the colonies too long.

There were times she thought no one was getting out of this alive. She remembered, a long time ago, a little girl who hid in the ventilation shafts of the _Einstein_ , crying because her world had ended. And the little girl had kept going, was still going now.

Hannah stepped out of her shower and on to the bathmat, dripping water onto the synthetic pile. “Forward unto the breach,” she murmured, snatching another towel from the rail and wrapping it around her waist, stepping toward her desk and the list of waiting reports.

 

**Earth Date: 8/10/2186**

**The Crucible Construction Site**

The woman in the hologram glanced at her hands, before raising her gaze to Hackett. “One more question, if I may, sir?” she sounded oddly formal, stiff. Hackett waited for her to relax, waited for the woman he knew so well to reassert herself and when she didn’t, he nodded encouragingly.

Shepard drew a deep breath. “Why me?”

Of all the questions she could ask, this one surprised him. Why Shepard? He wondered if he should tell her about the others that came close, the many soldiers who were better fighters than she was, more disciplined than she was. People who felt more deeply, or were less stubborn. People who would never have survived one suicide mission let alone two. People who had survived more than she had and were broken inside because of it. Tell her she was the product of a gamble, most acceptable to Udina, Anderson and him. A compromise.

Why Shepard? Why was she acceptable to the three self anointed king makers?

Because he had seen something in that young woman on Elysium, all those years ago? Or because Mindoir had stirred his heart even longer ago?

Because she was lucky? Because she was determined? Because she was so damned principled?

Because one day he just happened to decide he liked her? Because one day Anderson felt like he needed another project?

Because he couldn’t face giving John or Jane such a role? Because John and Jane were too good to waste on the Spectres?

Hackett didn’t know how to begin, so he told her what she needed to hear, and trusted to Alenko to fill in the gaps in ways Hackett’s faith couldn’t. He found a lukewarm half cup of coffee and stared at the skeleton of the Crucible.

In truth, he thought, she could have been anyone. But she wasn’t. She was Shepard. And the myth was reason enough.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus endeth the backstory of Shepard, whose life is chaos.


End file.
